


The Flame of Nobility

by Monarch_Actual



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2020-06-29 08:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 142,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19826632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monarch_Actual/pseuds/Monarch_Actual
Summary: Morgan-B312 has survived in a story where her part to play should have finished long ago. Now, with a heart torn between the desire to survive the war, and the calling of the Ghosts of Noble, will Morgan live up to the destiny that has been set up for her, or will her flame be snuffed out amongst the arms of The Ark? Sequel to A Noble Cause, a changed novelization of Halo 3.





	1. Sierra Bravo 312

_That lone wolf stuff? It stays behind._

_Tell 'em to make it count._

_First glassing? Me too._

_You're on your own, Noble. Carter out._

_I'm ready! How 'bout you!?_

_You have to leave me, Morgan._

Green eyes, shielded by a golden visor, shot open without a sound, heart thundering in ears that were ringing even now. A green canopy of leaves above shielded those eyes from the sun hanging over head. Voices filtered through the ringing, something familiar reaching her through her muddled mind as something was pulled from her helmet, the disconnect sparking a feeling in her neural lace.

"Radio for VTOL, heavy lift gear. We're not leaving her here."

A tall black man, patrol cap shielding his eyes and a cigar chomped between teeth set into an iron hard jaw, had his eyes locked onto a chip held in his hands.

Something shot through the woman's veins, like electricity. It matched the electric blue that had once filled that chip, and a darker shade of blue covered the armored arm that reached for the man's own, the one that held the chip.

"Yeah, you're not," came the raspy voice from within the helmet as she began to rise up.

The man, Sergeant Major Avery Johnson, looked back at Morgan-B312, Noble Six, with what was either amazement or concern. "You crazy fool, what were you thinking jumping out of that ship like that? One of these days, you're gonna land on something as stubborn as you are, and I don't do bits and pieces."

The woman known as Noble Six didn't answer, merely reaching for the chip and taking it back from him. The sergeant major didn't fight her for it, and with a gaze that looked into the hollow center for longer than was needed, Six reinserted it into the slot in her helmet.

"Where is she, Six? Where's Cortana?"

_Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it_

Green eyes peered through the golden visor, and Johnson saw only his reflection in the golden hexagonal pattern. "She stayed behind." A tone that was weary from a lifetime of battles fell flat, and the Spartan made no move to say anything more.

Marines looked between each other, Johnson, and her, before one of them came closer with a handheld terminal in his hands. Johnson, shoving the cigar back into his mouth, gestured to the Marine. "Make it quick, Corporal."

The Marine, looking down to his terminal, keyed a few commands in. "Sorry, sir." Looking back to Six, he held his terminal up, still fiddling with it. "Your armor's still in partial lock down. We'll have to do a few calibrations, make sure you're green, and then we can get moving again."

Six only nodded, her throat feeling raw from the incident on High Charity, the nightmare that she had nearly lost her life in, and swallowed roughly. It would clear up eventually.

Checking movement of all her major joints, shield system tests, and dumping her armor's diagnostic log into the terminal had the Corporal nod in satisfaction before closing the terminal and sliding it back to the small of his back, just underneath his pack.

Stepping aside, the Marine nodded to Johnson. "She's green, Sergeant Major."

Six heard something, a rustling, and then she saw it. The way the light bent at an unnatural angle, the height and slowness of a stalking predator, and the rush of adrenaline that flooded her veins once more. She didn't see Johnson nod to it.

A blue armored hand snapped out, yanking the magnum from Johnson's thigh holster, and it was up in a flash, buried between the mandibles of an absolutely massive Elite that wore elaborate gray armor, a set that she had seen only once before.

"Six, wait! The Arbiter's with us now!" The Elite, with a pistol barrel shoved into the roof of his mouth, made no move in defense against the Spartan's actions, and Six felt a pair of hands on her shoulder and arm, lowering the magnum. "Come on, now. We've got enough problems without you two trying to kill each other."

Six glanced to the left with her eyes, hesitating, before finally lowering the barrel. Johnson had been in the Corps longer than she had been alive. He had been at first contact, had fought aliens for the entirety of the war. She trusted him, and so, she lowered the pistol.

Still in her grasp, the Elite shook her off, flexing his mandibles. "Were it so easy," he muttered, before pulling away and striding off with his long hoofed legs. "We must go. The Brutes have our scent."

Johnson took a deep drag off of his cigar, exhaling slowly. The smoke covered her visor, and she frowned. Taking an assault rifle from one of the Marines, he handed it to Six butt first. "Then they must love the smell of green," he answered, before putting his hand up in the air and waving it in a circle motion. "Form up, we're moving out!"

Six held the assault rifle up, checking it over just in case. The ammo counter could always be wrong, but she was somewhat pleased to see that it wasn't. She took her first steps forward, and felt her hips and shoulders cry out in pain, and she stifled the groan that rose up from within. The fall had hurt more than she thought it would, even with the armor locking down. Soreness went through all of her muscles, reminding her of the nonstop fight that had occurred just hours before.

Nobody caught on to it, however. Johnson didn't miss a beat, commanding his men even as the Spartan returned to her senses completely. "First squad, you're my scouts, move out as quiet as you can. Go!"

Several Marines split off from the squad making its way through the underbrush, disappearing amongst the trees as they jogged ahead. In the distance, a howl went up, something that made at least a few of the men shiver a little. "That was close."

"Yeah, too close," another replied.

A voice came over the comms, filled with statics and cutting some of the words. " _Johnson, be advised. Hostiles are- on the move- eyes on a Brute pack- Over._ "

Johnson, trying to reach the Marine on the other end, shook his head. "Say again, Gunny? You're breaking up."

Even if something had come through, it would have been drowned out. Overhead, a Phantom dropship passed, searching for something in the heavy foliage.

Johnson cursed, pulling the cigar from his mouth and snuffing the cherry out against his boot before shoving it into one of the pockets on his vest. "Split up, a group like this will draw more attention than we need. Six, Arbiter, go for the river, follow it down to the hydroelectric plant, our evac will meet us there. 2nd Squad, you're with me. Go!"

Six watched as the Marines split off, climbing up the rock face to the right and pulling Johnson up after them, before scattering into the woods as only experienced warfighters could. That left her alone with the Arbiter, an Elite.

Another howl went up in the distance, but Six only had eyes for the alien next to her, a supposed ally. "You. I saw you, when that Flood form had us."

The Arbiter, craning his long neck back to look at the Spartan, flexed his mandibles. A spreading movement that had her fight the urge to shoot him then and there. Muscle memory was a hell of a thing. "The Prophets have lied to my people, have deemed us no better than yours, and I have learned the truth of the Rings."

Six's eyes narrowed behind her visor. "You didn't seem all that convinced when we last met."

The Arbiter didn't respond, his orange colored eyes merely blinking as he gestured over his shoulder with a jerk of his head. "A single Brute, and the Grunts it brings for assistance."

She put the conversation aside, but moved up next to him to peer through dense foliage that covered them, even her blue armor that would normally stand out was cloaked well by her efforts to conceal herself. Ahead of them, a Brute and several Grunts milled about in a clearing, with the Brute standing on a log and overseeing his troopers. The clearing led to a cliff, where a Phantom hovered in support with a Grunt manning a side door mounted plasma cannon. Even now, Six saw something black hanging from the edge of the door, barking orders. A Brute chieftain clad in black and orange armor growled something and stepped back into the Phantom.

The Phantom suddenly cleared out, the door shutting on the plasma cannon and covering it. Gunfire went up in the distance. The Phantom was likely moving to take charge of the situation. That left only the infantry in Six's way, and she took aim with her rifle.

The trigger was pulled multiple times, single shots from the MA5C cracking loudly and impacting on the Brute's armor. Unlike those she had fought on High Charity, these were once again equipped with powered armor, and rather than have a shielding system like those used by Spartans and Elites, this armor's shields only deflected hits, but would fall off the Brute completely and leave them defenseless after too much damage.

Plasma fire from the Arbiter's plasma rifle whined out, helping to gun the Brute down before he could engage them. His barked order, however, led the Grunts to charge the two enemies of the Covenant. They were dispatched without much issue, but Six noticed that they weren't as cowardly as those she normally fought.

"The Grunts are acting different. Not nearly as cowardly as usual. They're acting like the ones that assaulted New Alexandria."

The Arbiter looked back at her. "Your large city, on the world that birthed other demons like you. Brutes led the assault there. The Grunts' new-found courage is but fear. When we are victorious, all those who serve the Prophets will be punished."

Six remembered. Elites weren't present during the fighting at New Alexandria, only Brutes. Grunts led by Elites were more effective, but cowered upon the loss of their leaders. Brutes, however, led differently. The Grunts were more suicidal in their fighting, but it was likely because they knew if they ran they would be killed either way, whether it be by the UNSC or the Brutes that sould sooner eat them than let those that retreated live.

It mattered little to Six in the end, and a fight through another squad led her and the Arbiter to a cave lit by flares, the red chemical based lighting filling the cave with a dull glow, smoke wafting up from the flares before dissipating.

Exiting the cave left Six looking over a dozen sleeping Grunts scattered in a large forested expanse. Brutes, Jackals, and active Grunts patrolled the far side, looking for any Humans that would be stupid enough, or crazy enough, to engage them.

Six aimed her rifle, but a large hand rested on the railing that acted as her sights. "Quietly, while they slumber." The Arbiter muttered in a low voice. "I will deal with those on the other side."

Six didn't protest, the Elite cloaking and disappearing from view as she slung the rifle onto her back and pulled the knife from its scabbard on her hip. The blade made a hissing noise as it was pulled from the self sharpening scabbard, glinting in the light that got through the trees above.

Her first target sat snoozing in a shaded area, and had no chance to make a sound as the steel blade entered beneath his chin and swiftly, yet silently, ended his life. Others met similar fates, until Six had cleared out all those that were sleeping. Then it all exploded.

The whine of plasma rifles went up on the other side of the clearing, and the crack of a carbine in the trees reported the presence of a Jackal sniper. Six refused to stay on the elevated land when a sniper had an eye on it. Leaping from it to the valley below, she fell on something, and it made a sickening crack as her boots sunk into it.

Looking down, she realized that yet another Grunt had been asleep, and she frowned. Her boots were covered in the blue gore that Grunts held inside of them, and with a shake, she shook some of it off. Stepping off of the corpse and into the foliage, the undergrowth began to stick to her. If nothing else, it would act as camouflage at least.

A roar went up as the Arbiter, energy sword glowing brightly in the darkness of the African jungle, bisected a Brute with a single sweep, flowing into a graceful flurry of strikes that snuffed out everything it touched.

Six arrived just in time to see the blade shut off, smoke curling into the air from where the gore that had splashed onto it was burned away. The two warriors locked eyes, and the Arbiter once again spread his mandibles as he observed the Spartan. Six merely nodded at him, her rifle held at loose ready. She was learning how to work alongside him without the sudden urge to blow him away, and it would take time, but she was Humanity's best. She could do it.

The energy sword went back to the Arbiter's hip, and Six faintly remembered the stolen sword from High Charity that she had used to cut her way out of the infested city. A hand ghosted across her hip, opposite the UNSC issued knife, and she felt emptiness. A sigh, it had been lost in the fall from the dreadnought. She cursed the loss, but it wasn't important.

The Arbiter was already moving, using the loping gait that reminded her of a horse, and was several meters ahead already. Six made to catch up, eyes scanning the trees around them in case of an ambush, but the trap had already been sprung.

Around a bend, Six heard more voices, one a deep guttural tone and the other a choked, yet defiant voice.

The Arbiter pointed it out, and Six saw the Brute, clad in reflective golden tinted armor, holding a Marine by the throat. IFF pinged Gunnery Sergeant Reynolds, Leonard B., and Six already had her rifle up and ready to fire at the Brute holding the NCO. 7.62mm jacketed rounds shot from the MA5C's barrel, impacting the weak deflection shields the Brutes had, and dropped it quickly. Beset by fire, the Brute threw the Marine to the side, where he fell nearly 20 feet into the undergrowth.

The Brute, turning to engage, lost his armor as it exploded from his undersuit. A loud roar filled the air, but was cut off by the choking gurgle that came as a single carbine round, fired by the Arbiter, took the top of the Brute's head off and left him to fall forward, opposite where Reynolds had been thrown.

Pointing to the Grunts that came across the log, plasma pistols barking, Six sprinted forward to get to Reynolds. The Arbiter, understanding, suppressed the Grunts that came over, and corpses started to fall to the other side, nearly landing on the compacted brush where Reynolds lay struggling to get the wind back into his lungs.

Another Grunt fell from the log, and Six moved quickly, covering the Marine with her own body and armor as the Grunt came down. She felt her shoulders shift as she braced herself on hands and knees, and the hefty weight of the Grunt falling on her made her grunt as the soreness in her limbs was agitated even further.

The Gunnery Sergeant, looking up into the golden visor, seemed taken aback. "Th-thanks, Lieutenant. Appreciate the save," he breathed out, finally getting a full lung full of air. "Brute Chieftain, Phantom, pinned us down." Another breath of air, and the NCO closed his eyes for a moment. "Killed my men."

Six frowned in her helmet, standing up and rolling her shoulders, before holding her hand out to Reynolds. "We'll pay them back, Gunny. I promise."

Reynolds, after a second, reached out and was pulled to his feet as easily as a child. He looked at the Spartan towering over him and, realizing she was more serious than he thought, slowly nodded. Recovering his assault rifle from the bushes, he pointed to a ramp of stone, leading up to the log. "One of the hydro complexes is just up ahead, where we're supposed to evac. Johnson should already be there."

Six nodded, holding her hand up and gesturing the Arbiter forward, and the alien closed in before they started to move on, walking across the thick log one at a time to prevent too much weight from sitting in one area. Six saw several IFF pings off the side of the path, and moved to check it out. Reynolds, seeing where she was going, sighed as he saw the corpses of his men.

Six made short work of recovering their tags, holding them out in a bundle of chains. She saw the pain in the Gunny's eyes as the last of his squad, something she felt all too much. Reynolds had her condolences, and she remembered the loss of Jorge and Emile's tags, spirited away by ONI on Cairo and long gone.

A cave yawned open ahead, with the Arbiter leading the way inside. Reynolds followed him, and Six took up the rear, but something was getting to her. The clump of dog tags that Reynolds had stuffed into his fatigue pockets, they reminded her of something, of the last words of one of those she called friend.

_"_ _We all make it sooner or later. You better get going, Six. They'll need you down there. Listen, Reach has been good to me, and now it's time to return the favor. Don't deny me this."_ Being carried to the edge of space by Jorge-052, his last words in this world had stuck with her, echoed in her mind those long nights where she had trouble falling asleep. _"Tell 'em to make it count."_

She remembered the vision. The slipspace bomb's portal, Jorge's funeral pyre, hadn't even closed completely when she saw more opening, and one of the biggest Covenant armadas ever seen exited slipspace over Reach. Jorge's sacrifice had been for nothing.

Six was startled by Reynolds snapping his fingers in front of Six's visor. "Lieutenant? One of the corpsman radioed, says your vitals just pinged KIA and wants a sitrep. What's going on in that helmet?"

Six shook her head, both to shake away the memories and to still the Gunny's concern. "Everything is fine. We need to keep moving."

Reynolds didn't look convinced, but he didn't push it. Not like he could do anything about it anyway. The Gunny merely nodded, before continuing on. "We need to hurry, I can hear the Pelicans already." He started to jog ahead, weapon at the ready. The Arbiter and Six followed close behind, with Six ready to just get out of this damned jungle.

Pelicans were waiting around the bend, hovering over the rushing water. Covenant infantry was firing at the Pelicans, with the chin turret on one of them lighting the Covie units up with impunity as plasma splashed against the heavy armor plating. A Brute was torn in half by the heavy fire put out by the chin gun.

The other Pelican had its rear bay open, a Marine manning the heavy machine gun in the bay. Tracer fire spewed out and cut into the Grunts, concrete structures, and trees alike as the heavy rounds did their job.

Johnson was hanging on the side of the door, gesturing the stragglers forward. "Come on! We need to get out of here!"

Six put on a burst of speed, reaching the Pelican first and sliding into the bay to suppress anything that decided to try and fire at her. Reynolds made it next, with the Arbiter bending into the bay with little issue in last place.

Johnson, yelling into his comms earpiece, backed away from the door. "Get us out of here, now!"

Six, already keyed into the frequency, heard the exchange.

"We've got new contacts, hang on!" The Pelican they were in spun around quickly, the deck vibrating heavily as the chin turret opened up and shook the entire airframe.

The pilot of the other Pelican was swiveling to engage as well. "Banshees, fast and low! They're coming in too-"

The woman was cut off as a bright green orb splashed against the cockpit, detonating the glass and killing the two pilots, before the Pelican began to spin out of control. Six cursed as it went down, clipping one of the structures and flipping over before sinking into the river upside down.

As much as she hated it, they couldn't pick up the Marines that had gone down. None of them surfaced, even while the Pelican still airborne took fire. An explosion ripped through the Pelican and the world outside started to spin as they took a hit to the right main engine.

Johnson, clinging to a strap in the bay, struggled to stay up. "Get a hold of her!"

"We've lost a thruster, we're going down, Sergeant Major!" The world continued to spin outside of the bay, and Six saw Reynolds start to lose his footing, and a blue armored hand shot out, bunching the material of his collar up in her hands.

His movement arrested, Reynolds looked back at her, the fear back in his eyes. He wordlessly nodded at her, and she nodded back, but she didn't let go. She wouldn't lose another Marine if she could help it.

The Pelican's pilot was crying for help, his words going out over the airwaves. "Mayday, mayday, mayday. Echo Five-One is going down. Repeat, we are going down."

Another voice filled the radio, much calmer and collected as the Pelican fell through the air towards a much larger reservoir where a massive dam was set up. " _Echo_ _Five-One_ _, we read you. Bring her down easy if you can. Support is on the way, Hocus is moving as fast as she can, just hang on tight. Crows Nest out._ "

The Pelican went in faster and faster as it lost energy and altitude. The blocky Pelican wasn't going to be doing any gliding at this speed, or at this attitude. Six, throwing Reynolds to the back of the bay, used her newly freed hand to smack the Pelican's bay door controls, hitting it hard enough to crush the button itself, but the door began to close far too slowly for Six's liking.

The concrete rose up to meet them, and the Pelican smashed against the structure of the dam with enough force to rip the damaged wing, and the thruster that had been hit, free from the airframe. The downed bird began to roll, making a full rotation before coming to a stop resting on its left side.

Inside, Six was thrown against the interior, grunting loudly as she agitated her weary body even more. Black began to show at the edges of her vision, and she fought against it, but it would be futile, and with the sounds of the jungle closing around the remains of Echo Five-One, Six lost consciousness.

* * *

Six's vision came back blurry, but quickly cleared, and she could hear something. There was a banging at the bay door, and a guttural hooting as the Brutes that had gathered outside attempted to pry the bay door open. She looked back into the bay, completely dark as power had been lost, and turned her helmet lights on.

Johnson and Reynolds were barely conscious, with Johnson nursing a head wound and Reynolds showing a dislocated shoulder, groaning at the pain as he began to wake up. The Arbiter, orange eyes glowing in the light of her headlamps, spread his mandibles in what may have been a shrug.

The Arbiter turned around, opening the door to the pilot's area, and turned back almost immediately. "The pilots have been killed, and the cockpit is blocked off by the structure we have crashed into."

A frown, and Six nodded in resignation. "They're trying to get in, and I have no doubt they'll make it in eventually. Any ideas?"

The Arbiter wordlessly drew his energy sword, the blade lighting the dark bay up even better than her headlamps.

Six pursed her lips. "Straight to the point, I see."

The Arbiter, confused by her Human saying, looked down at the sword, and then back at her. "My blade has the sharpest point of any seen by Man or Covenant. I will use it well."

Six stifled a smirk. "It was a Human saying, but you've got the gist of it. You ready for this?" She stepped back through the Pelican, coming to the door that separated the bay from the cockpit, and saw the remains of the pilots. Both had been crushed flat by the impact and the way the Pelican had pushed its nose against the building. Behind the rear seat, set for the pilot, Six saw what she needed. The Pelican had been armed with a shotgun for cockpit defense, and she pulled it out of its spot with a nod. Racking the slide, she saw it was fully loaded and ready to go.

In the bay, the Elite readied his sword, giving her a nod. He was as ready as he would ever be, and as Six saw the cutting torch get broken out, she waited. The circle that the torch made in the bay grew, burning red hot in the darkness, and when it was nearly ready to fall out, Six made her move.

A blue armored leg shot out and hit the hole cut into the bay door, launching it out with enough force that the Brute waiting with the torch was killed outright from his chest being crushed by so much weight hitting him at high speed.

The Arbiter was out before she could move, and was already cutting through the Brutes with impunity, his sword glowing like a hungry flame eating away at a forest. Six was out soon after, Shotgun roaring and coring a Brute that tried to hit the Arbiter from behind, and again at another that only destroyed his armor. A roar and a pump and the Brute got put down by a second shot.

Then the shotgun was out of her hands, snatched by a massive black and orange armored hand. Six looked at the owner of it and saw the Brute Chieftain from earlier, the one that likely had killed Reynolds' men.

Her fist lashed out, hitting the Brute like a cobra that had coiled itself to strike, and released the shotgun that remained in the Brute's hand, held by the barrel. Another fist lashed out and broke what teeth hadn't been crushed by the first strike. The Brute roared in anger, blood leaking from his mouth. Six continued her flurry of strikes, the Brute eventually being stunned enough to drop the massive hammer that he hadn't been able to use, as well as the shotgun.

Six, grabbing the scattergun out of the air, rammed her shoulder into the Brute's midsection and chest, knocking it off of its feet and onto the ground. In a way that once again echoed of something personal, she buried her knee in the Brute's chest to keep it down. Finally, she took the shotgun's barrel and stuffed it under his chin, pulling the trigger once and scattering the Brute's consciousness to the wind.

With their chieftain dead, the other Brutes went berserk, dropping their weapons and howling at the one who had killed him, but the Arbiter had other plans. His body was in front of Six's before she could bring the shotgun to bear, and he covered her with another flurry of slashes and cuts, killing off the rampant pack with little effort. As the sound of engines grew, he looked to the sky. Another Phantom had come in, ready to drop off reinforcements, the main plasma turret opening up to suppress those that had survived.

"Split up!" Six yelled out to the Arbiter, racking the slide once more and putting a new shell in the chamber. The giant alien crouched and used his powerful legs to leap onto the structure that the Pelican had fell against, disappearing as his cloaking suite activated. Six, lacking anything like it, was forced to bob and weave under heavy fire from the Phantom. Johnson and Reynolds were still inside the Pelican, and she had to draw fire away from it.

Moving to heavy cover behind another building, Six cursed, switching the shotgun for her assault rifle and returning fire. The Grunt that hung from the side door gun covered his face with an arm, before sliding back into the Phantom as the doors closed. They wouldn't need plasma cannons when the main gun turret was brought to bear, splashing plasma against her cover and melting away material at the corners.

Her radio crackled, a woman with a heavy southern accent sounding through it. _"This is Pelican Kilo Zero-Two-Three, inbound hot. Hang tight, Spartan. I'll getcha out of there."_

Six pulled back further into cover, seeing the Pelican rise over the trees in the distance, and then a flash appeared at the front of the Pelican's missile launch bays. It was evident these weren't the typical Anvil missiles. Several Python Air-to-Air missiles erupted from the missile launch tubes, screaming forward at a high speed, the Phantom their only target.

_"_ _Hocus, Fox Three,"_ she called out, the missiles screeched past Six, the Spartan peeking out of cover long enough to see all three missiles that had been launched impact against the front of the Phantom's sloped nose. One missile detonated against the armor, deforming it. Another detonated inside and ripped the hole wide open as the Phantom lost power and started to fall. The final missile tracked and followed the crippled dropship down, detonating deep inside of the Phantom and ripping it apart from within. _"Splash one Phantom. Coming in for pickup now. Your limo has arrived, Lieutenant."_

Six sighed with relief, looking back to the downed Pelican where Johnson had stumbled out, with Reynolds leaning against him. The two were basically holding each other up at this point, and Johnson likely had a concussion. Six made her way over, and the Arbiter decloaked not far away. The Spartan gestured him forward, and had him take Johnson to Kilo 023, already hovering in place just off the dam.

With Reynolds shoulder still dislocated, she looked at him, getting ready to set it again as she placed her hands on his arm and collar. "This might sting a bit. We'll do it on three, alright?"

Reynolds nodded, waiting for the countdown that never came as Six wordlessly set it in place. Reynolds bit back a scream, gritting his teeth. "You said on three!"

Six, a small smile on her face at the Marine's reaction, gave him a shrug. "I guess I just count faster than you, Gunny. Let's get out of here, I've had enough of the jungle."

Reynolds mumbled something in return, but Six ignored it, leading the way back to the Pelican where the Arbiter had helped Johnson in and let him strap himself in this time. Reynolds could climb up himself, but he worked the joint, rolling it a few times in its socket as he grimaced. It would sting for a bit, but he would be fine.

Taking the time to give Johnson a once over as the bay door closed, she looked into his eyes, seeing that he didn't have a concussion, he was just shaken up by the fall and being tossed around. "You good, Sergeant Major?"

Johnson waved her off, pulling the patrol cap off of his head and holding it by the brim as he reached for his cigar, stuffing it between his teeth and lighting it with an old metal lighter. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered around the cigar. "Damned good thing I'm indestructible."

The Spartan shook her head, enjoying the Marine's quips once again. "Yeah, it is. I'm glad to see you made it, Johnson."

The old NCO looked up at her, staring at her for a few moments, and the golden visor stared back. Holding out his hand, he nodded. "Avery."

Six, confused for a second, slowly reached her own hand out, careful not to crush his in her larger armored hand. "Morgan."

With the Pelican angling up and vectoring towards Mount Kilimanjaro, Noble Six sat down next to Johnson, feeling that same sensation that she had felt with Noble, with Cortana. They were on a first name basis. Johnson was… her friend. Marines didn't often talk to her unless it was in awe or distant cooperation, but something was different about Johnson, and for a moment, she thought of Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Stacker. The ODST had been friendly towards her. She hoped that he had made it off of Halo alive, and if he was as good as Johnson, then he most certainly had.

Settling into the seat, she allowed herself to revel in the feeling that she had comrades again, not just allies, but comrades. People she could trust, even if it was just Johnson for the time being.

With a weary body, and an equally weary mind, she let herself relax for the hour long flight to Crow's Nest, hovering just between sleep and wakefulness.


	2. Flight of The Crow

_"This is Kilo Zero-Two-Three, inbound. Sierra Three One Two onboard, requesting priority clearance, over."_

Hocus' voice filtered smoothly over the radio, Noble Six standing in the door between the cockpit and the bay, watching as the jungles passed beneath the Pelican. A clearing, something barely noticeable from the air, opened up and gave way to Human steel and concrete, a base hidden within the green.

_"Roger Kilo Zero-Two-Three. Deck's all yours, come on down. Sorry for the tight squeeze, VIP space is a little limited at the moment. Crow's Nest, out."_

The Pelican lowered smoothly to the deck, and the pilots began shutdown procedures, one of them sliding their helmet off while the other kept it on. A woman sat in the seat just behind the cockpit glass, and she let her helmet fall to the side between her seat and the cockpit wall. Golden brown hair was held up in a tight bun, ever the professional, and it was let down as Six watched with a little bit of envy at how easily the hair framed the pilot's tanned skin.

Hocus looked over at the Spartan, giving her a grin as the deep southern drawl sounded, covering Six's ears in a voice that was sweet enough to be infectious. "It's good to have you back, ma'am. Damned glad to still have Spartans in the fight. I think we'll need every one of you we can get." The pilot sat back against the seat, taking a moment to relax. She had been run ragged ever since Truth's fleet had appeared, only a day after Six had left on her wild goose chase.

"Mm, it's nice to have my boots back on the ground, Lieutenant. Thanks for the save," Six replied, the golden visor not revealing anything on Six's face.

Hocus shrugged. "All part of the job. Maybe later, you can buy me a drink and show me what's under that helmet and we can call it even, hm?"

Six felt some of the weariness drain out of her as the pilot's good natured attitude rubbed off on her. "We'll see about that, Hocus." Backing out of the cockpit, Six rapped on the bulkhead as she turned around, and another knock sounded while the Spartan began to exit the bay, a hint of a smile on her face fighting against the weariness she wanted to wear. She decided she liked Hocus.

Johnson had already been helped out of the Pelican by a medic, who was bandaging the wound that had opened on his temple. He let them finish the bandage before waving them off and turning to Six. Reynolds, also being checked out, had been cleared with a minor pain killer after the fall he had taken and the Pelican's crash. Marines scattered around the landing pad, in various states of injury, all had eyes on the recovered Spartan, who stood tall in her dull blue armor, golden visor showing defiance even while the Covenant burned away parts of Humanity's homeworld.

Johnson looked up at her. "Don't flirt too much with Hocus, now. She's a bad influence on you."

Six tilted her head a little bit, confused, before glancing back at the pilot in the cockpit. She seemed to have heard what the Sergeant Major had said, and upon meeting Six's visor with her chocolate brown eyes, winked at Six.

This only added to Six's confusion, and Johnson chuckled but didn't explain further. Footsteps rang off of a metal stairway off to Six's left, and she turned to see who it was.

Lieutenant Commander Miranda Keyes had made her way there personally to meet the retrieved super soldier. She looked at Six and gave a brief smile, before turning to Johnson. "Where'd you find her?"

Johnson didn't miss a beat. "Nappin', out back."

A bigger smile came over Keyes' face, and it reached her eyes as she nodded. "I'll bet." She held her hand out to Six, who took it and shook. "It's good to see you again, Lieutenant."

Six nodded, her hand coming back. "Likewise, ma'am."

Turning away, Keyes gestured for them to follow her. "Come on, let's get you up to speed."

The group, consisting of Johnson, Keyes, Six, and the Arbiter, went back up the stairs that Keyes had taken to get to them. Reynolds, saluting Six and thanking her for her help in the jungle, split off to attend to other duties.

The halls of Crows Nest were filled with wounded or dying Marines. Those that had been made deaf or blind, those who had lost limbs, or taken grievous injuries in the line of duty, lay slumped against walls or in makeshift hospital beds with bags of fluids and IV drips. Groans of pain were heard nearly constantly as the base's medics scurried to make sure they saved whoever they could. It was a losing battle, and it hurt Six to see.

Johnson went to a knee, saying hushed words to a Marine that had been bloodied and battered, gauze covering eyes that had lost their sight. Six frowned, and Keyes couldn't help but unknowingly follow the Spartan's lead. "Truth's fleet broke through the lunar perimeter with ease, smashed what was left of the Home Fleet. As you can see, terrestrial casualties from the orbital bombardment were..."

Six cut her off, the golden visor revealing no emotions from the woman within the heavy armor. "Extreme?"

Keyes, taken aback, nodded. "Covenant deployments have been noted all over the planet. The old United States territory in North America, the Europa Sector, even deep in Old Russia. It seems like they've concentrated most of their forces here, however. Single cruisers were sent out to hotspots around the globe, but a full battlegroup's strength has been concentrated here, in East Africa. Then they started digging."

"Digging, ma'am?"

"We don't know yet, Lieutenant. Judging from what we learned on Halo, he's looking for something called The Ark. It'll allow him to fire every ring at once, and then-"

"The rings will kill us all," Six finished, her tone laced with finality.

Keyes locked her eyes onto the visor, and her lips pursed into a thin line as she nodded again. They had stepped into a command center, one filled with Marines working at consoles and wires draped everywhere. Exposed piping dripped every so often, one of the water droplets landing on the Arbiter's head. His mandibles spread, but he said nothing, merely following behind the Humans.

An ops tech spoke up, one with a bald head and a scruffy graying goatee. "Ma'am, I have Admiral Hood on the line for you."

"Put him on the main screen." The group had gathered in front of it, looking up at the screen filled with data from the base's sensors, and then the weathered face of Lord Hood showed on it, the last few weeks of heavy combat on his homeworld taking a toll on him.

"Do you have any good news for me, Commander Keyes?" He asked, crossing his arms. Hood's eyes darted over, seeing the Spartan standing tall amongst the command center of Crow's Nest.

"As good as it gets, sir."

"So I see. What's your status, Six?"

Six felt herself stand a little straighter, despite the protest in her muscles. "Mean and Green, Admiral."

A hint of a smile showed at the corner of Hood's mouth. It seemed like he, too, was relieved that they still had Spartans in the fight. "I'm glad to hear it. Now, the Commander has come up with a plan, but it's dangerous. Until I knew we had you back, I wasn't sure we could pull it off."

Keyes, off to the side, stepped forward slightly, getting Six's attention. "Truth's ships are clustered above the evacuation site, but ground forces have deployed anti-aircraft batteries all around the perimeter. If we can neutralize just one of those batteries, we can deploy a strike force and punch right through his defenses."

Hood's smile disappeared as he listened to it one more time. "I'll initiate a low level strike, three frigate task force, and hit 'em where it hurts most. I only have a handful of ships, Lieutenant, and it's a big risk. There aren't many people I trust to spearhead this, but I'm confident-"

Hood's voice was cut off by the sound of power buzzing as it was killed at the source, dim red emergency lighting taking the place of the bright whites.

"Aw, hell- We've lost power again! Emergency power is on, but the shielding failed. Main generators are down and charging, ma'am," one of the techs called out, the one that had greeted the Commander when she had come in.

"Good, we'll make due with what we have. As soon as we have power restored, re-establish contact with Lord Hood. Tell him-"

The buzzing flared and the screens ahead returned, all of them covering the face and chest of a Covenant Hierarch, the one that they called the Prophet of Truth, and he wasted no time in berating his enemy.

"You are, all of you, _vermin_. Cowering in the dirt, thinking what, I wonder? That you might escape the coming fire? No. Your world will burn until its surface is but _glass_! Not even your _demon_ will live to creep, blackened from its hole to mar the reflection of our passage… the culmination of our Journey. Your destruction is the will of the gods, and I _am_ their instrument!"

The power flickered again, before the main generators came back to life, multiple systems beeping and whining as they came back online. The sound of a deep exhale came from Six's right, and she saw Johnson once again puffing on the Sweet Williams Cigar he always had stowed away somewhere.

"Cocky bastard, he just loves to run his mouth," he muttered, and saw Six was looking at him.

"Does he usually mention me?" She asked, half serious about it.

Keyes was already moving, pointing to the tech that seemed to be in charge. "Give the order, we're closing up shop."

"Ma'am?"

"We're about to get hit, _hard_. Get all medical teams moving, have Marine forces initiate defense code Alpha-One. Start moving the wounded now, they'll be on the first birds out. Anybody who can walk and carry a gun can get armored up and in defense positions."

The Marine was already on it, and after a few moments of furious typing, he called out to her again. "Ma'am, squad leaders are requesting a rally point. Where should they go?"

Keyes, already racking the slide on her pistol and chambering the round, turned back and looked over Six, the Marine, and the rest of those in the command center. "Contingency point Bravo, update all tracker codes and broadcast cache locations, I have a feeling we won't be making it out of this one without another broken nose."

Keyes pointed to Noble Six, her pistol snugly in her thigh holster. "Lieutenant, you're our fast reaction force. First objective is to get to Hangar 03, defend it. That's our primary launch point for the medical wing, and if it falls, all of the wounded will be slaughtered."

"Yes ma'am," Six replied, looking to Johnson in something that felt familiar in more ways than one. "I need a weapon."

Despite the bruising, Johnson let a grin take over his face, the cigar in his teeth secured and snuffed out once more. "Right this way."

Six followed the Marine SNCO to the stair ways leading below the command center, seeing racks of weapons ready to go, and boxes of ammo left open with magazines filled with rounds inside. Six moved quickly, grabbing a battle rifle from the racks and checking it to make sure it was ready, and two SMGs were stuck to her hips with multiple magazines for quick reloads.

As Six grabbed enough ammo to last her for a while, Johnson grabbed a battle rifle as well, loading it. "The Arbiter and I will guard the ops center and the commander. We'll lock it down nice and tight, but those Marines downstairs could definitely use your help holding the line."

"I'll hold their hand if they need it," Six replied, slapping the bolt for the battle rifle and chambering a round.

The Sergeant Major nodded. "Good luck out there, Morgan. It'll be getting real hot, real soon."

"Same to you. I don't need to come back and see you napping on the job." The black man laughed, before cradling the bruising on his temple.

"Good, now get out of here, you're making my face hurt."

Six didn't say anything more, moving down another flight of stairs and through a door that opened into a large cave system. A voice shouted out to Marines deploying turrets and static defenses, sounding familiar to the blue Spartan.

Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Stacker, no longer clad in the black fatigues and armor of an ODST, stood bellowing orders to the marines. An incoming Spartan was hard to miss if they weren't trying to hide, and his eyes locked onto her with a grin of relief. "Glad to see you're back to work, Lieutenant. Johnson give you the shit details for sleeping on the job?"

Six, never slowing her jog, gave him a light bump with her elbow as she passed, and even then he was pushed a bit, miming a sound of pain. "He gave me the best detail, Gunny. I get to go all over the base saving Marines and showing off and you're stuck here in the dark."

Stacker smirked, wanting to say more, but knew they both had a job to do. Going back to ordering his Marines, his voice broadcasted on the channel that she had keyed into, and she heard him keep going. "Alright, Marines, get those turrets up and watch your fields of fire! We're gonna have the biggest damned killzone on the base bar none! Take the time you have to enjoy this calm before the shit storm, because the Corps did not see fit to issue us with rain coats!"

Six smiled softly as she came to another door, glad that yet another person she was able to trust somewhat was still alive.

The cave shuddered under a sudden impact. Something had exploded, something big, and Six had no doubt in her mind what it was. Johnson came on the line. " _Stacker, get me a point of entry. Best assessment_?"

Stacker's drawl replied without any hesitation. " _Hangar bay 03, Sergeant Major. I felt that one in my bones. It's almost like these bastards knew where to hit!_ "

" _Solid copy. Noble Six? Get there, see those first birds off. You'll get your next orders after that_."

The line cut with a click, and Six was isolated in her helmet once more. The door in front of her opened into a sealed hallway, another locked door sitting ready as the first closed behind her. Another detonation, and the sound of an M41 LAAG opening up sounded on the other side of the door, sliding open slowly as the heavy securing bolts retracted.

A Warthog sat with a duo of Marines inside, one ready to drive and the other on the gun. A plasma grenade flew through the air and landed on the 'Hog's windshield, and the Marines tried desperately to escape, but it was already too late.

The vehicle went up in flames, the Marines with it, and Six cursed as she went around the corner. Her battle rifle was already up, firing in quick bursts and taking out Covenant infantry with every pull of the trigger. Jackals and Grunts fell quickly under the withering storm of fire that came about when a Spartan took to the field. Brutes, despite their power armor, were little match for the heavy rounds either, the battle rifle's rhythmic report echoing off of the halls of Crow's Nest.

Burned out or damaged trucks, trailers, and forklifts filled the hall, and as Six passed by the smoldering Warthog, she reloaded and ducked back into cover, waiting for a lull in the heavy fire that had started coming her way. Marines already in the field of fire saw her advancing, and one called out to her.

"Ma'am! We'll open up a hole for you if you can break it wide open!" One of them tore a frag grenade from his belt, ripping the pin out and sidearming it. A second one followed close behind, and Six saw her opening. She stormed out of cover, rifle at the ready as the Marines followed close behind, and she put her rifle to good use in executing the survivors the frags hadn't finished off.

The two Marines moved to take up positions by the next door, gesturing her over. "We'll hold the hall, but the hangar bay is short handed and the bird's can't launch with Phantoms in the way. Good luck, ma'am!"

Six nodded, reloading her half empty mag with a fresh one as she went down the next hall. Commander Keyes' voice came on over the radio. " _Lieutenant? Good, this line is secure. My fireteams are spread too thin across the base. We won't be able to hold out for long. I need that hangar bay cleared ASAP. The others are being vacated as we speak, and several of the motor pools are loading up that way._ _This will be the last major evac point before we start retreating by ground._ "

"Yes ma'am. I'll get it done," Six replied, scooping up a grouping of frag grenades on the side of the hall, strapping them to her armor. The hallway continued on, taking several turns, before the walls shook again. She kept running, despite the base being hit as hard as it was. If she didn't make it, then this would be a tomb for more Marines than she liked to think about.

A final door opened, and she came out in Hangar 03. Bay doors leading to the housings had been shut to keep the Phantoms from destroying what Pelicans were left, and Covenant were crawling all over the place. What few Marines were still standing were trying to hold them off the best they could. In the distance, through the open main hangar door, Six could see a Covenant cruiser hanging in the air, swarmed by Banshees and Hornet VTOL attack craft fighting for air superiority.

Six wasted no time in joining the fight, her rifle up against her shoulder and barking loudly as she laid the enemy Grunts down. Brute commanders were already pointing at the Spartan, demanding that fire be focused on her, and she ducked into cover as the heavy plasma barrage came in. Steel beams were partly melted, and empty crates caught fire, but Six's shields glistened as glancing hits chipped away at her shield.

She began to displace, moving quickly to better cover, and started blasting more and more infantry as she moved. Jackals were killed off and Brutes retreated as their armor came off around them. Another Phantom began to move in through the bay, ready to deploy more troops, when explosions began to go up all over its left side.

A closed off bay set in the top of one of the walls had opened, and trails of smoke spewed from it with the bright orange flares of Anvil missiles being launched into the Phantom's exposed flank. One of them finally hit hard enough that the Phantom wailed loudly, losing power and falling to the deck. Brutes were crushed by the falling debris, and whatever was inside had likely been killed or crippled by the Pelican's barrage.

Six, peeking around cover, saw the Pelican hover out of its hiding spot, missile launch tubes smoking as they closed back up. It turned as it was dropped from its overhead clamps, the monstrous engines keeping it in the air whining loudly before the pilot brought it down and opened the rear bay. Inside, Marines on stretchers accompanied by a pair of medics could be seen. The three that had survived the assault on the hangar already had orders to board the Pelican, and they entered without looking back. Two more Pelicans left the same way, with Six's watchful eye making sure they made it out entirely.

With the final Pelican floating out of the bay and then disappearing off to the side, she felt her guard drop just a little. She had been waiting for one to turn into a fireball on its way out, and with none of them having done that, things were just a little better.

Her moment was over, however, as Johnson sounded in her ear, his tone urgent. " _Ops Center, Six. Need you back here on the double._ "

"Already moving," she responded, the channel cut and her body in motion once again. There was no rest for the wicked, and it seemed like life was intent on getting that through her thick Spartan skull. She didn't stop for ammunition, choosing to make best time for the ops center. If it came down to it, she could always steal whatever weaponry the covies had. Not like they would be using it, given they'd be dead.

As she backtracked through the carnage she had left in her wake, Marines were already clearing corpses from the halls, setting up new defenses or repairing what had been hit. Sandbags were stacked up, and even some of the corpses would be used as bulwarks to stop the plasma fusillades that the Marines would be seeing when things heated back up.

Some bodies were set off to the side, covered in tarps taken from the cargo trailers strewn about the halls, some even covered by the jackets or loose clothing taken from them. Six saw more than one body clad in UNSC green. She didn't dwell on it, or the weary looks she got from the Marines that still had to fight, even while their brothers got to rest. She felt for them, but there was nothing she could do, and she dove back into the dark corridor that led to the ops center. There was a buzzing sound, though, that didn't quite sit well with her. It wasn't alone, either. The massive ventilation tube that led through the base's main corridors banged and shifted with every second, and she knew it was about to get bad.

The cave that had been set up with machine gun emplacements earlier, where she had met with Stacker once more, was quiet for the moment, and a Marine was there to meet her at the wire mesh fencing separating the corridor's entryway from the cave. A flicker of movement registered even while the Marine was speaking, and her gun was up in an instant. The Marine, shocked at the Spartan suddenly pointing a weapon at him, froze up. A shot rang out and behind him, a Drone fell dead on the damp stone flooring of the cave.

Looking down at the Drone, and then back up at Six, he swallowed and gave her a nod. Six returned it, already moving out into the cave proper, where the buzzing she had heard before came back with a vengeance. The ventilation piping suddenly broke open, nearly two dozen Drones swarming out of it with plasma pistols shining brightly in the low light.

Six's rifle was up and firing, plasma splashing against her shielding and causing it to give off an angry golden glow. Stacker was already in command, shoring up the defense. "Drones! A whole swarm of 'em! Lock 'em and drop 'em Marines! Short, controlled bursts!"

Six took cover behind a pillar that was thick enough to hide her bulk behind, peeking out and taking pot shots when she could before her shields recharged. Shifting her battle rifle to her back, the two SMGs came from their resting places on her thighs, coming up blazing as she fought the recoil. Drones began to drop like the flies they were, and the wall was soon covered in gore as Six gunned them down with the help of the Marine force acting as the last line of defense for this sector.

With the Drones downed, Six heard the loudspeaker come on again, Keyes' voice filtering through. "Barracks are under attack! All available combat teams, respond immediately! Anyone in the barracks, I need a sitrep now!"

Six wasted no time in moving. The barracks weren't far, and she could cut through the ops center. Any Marines that had been caught out in the barracks would be slaughtered if they didn't already have their armor on. UNSC personnel kept weapons in racks in the barracks in land bases, just in case the Covenant decided to come knocking without calling first.

Dumping the magazines from the SMGs, she slapped them against her thighs and let the magazines come loose as they settled into the mag wells. The battle rifle came next, with Six stopping just inside the weapons area that she had first armed up at, refilling her ammo and heading for the level above.

Stepping up the creaky metal staircase, Six saw a new addition: A large bomb had been set up where she'd been standing only 20 minutes before, Reynolds, Johnson and several Marine techs standing around it with Johnson's ever present cigar chomped between his teeth. On the main screen, Keyes sat at the controls of a Pelican, glancing over as she saw the flash of blue and then Johnson's cigar.

Keyes locked onto the Spartan, before she realized what the Sergeant Major was doing. "Johnson?"

"Mm-hm?"

"You might wanna put that out."

Johnson didn't respond, only taking the cigar and snuffing it out against the sole of his boot. Reynolds, crouching next to the bomb, was looking at an open panel full of wiring. "I don't know about this, Commander. If I try to hook up a timer, damned thing might just go off on its own." Throwing his hands up in a 'it could go either way' gesture, he backed away and looked up at Keyes.

She looked down at Reynolds first. "Do it, we don't have many other options. If the base isn't blown the Covenant will have that many more troops to throw at us, plus whatever information remains in the databanks that couldn't be purged in time." Looking to Six, she went on. "Good work getting those Pelicans out. As you can see, we've hooked up a little going away gift for the Covenant. Smaller charges have been set throughout the base, ready to go up when this one does. Johnson, as soon as the evacuation is complete, start the timer sequence and get the hell out."

"Understood ma'am."

"Good. I'll see you all on the last Pelican out."

The screen cut and Johnson put his unlit cigar back in a pouch on the front of his armor, gesturing for Six to come with him. "Come on. Brutes have stormed the barracks, Marines are trapped inside. You and I both know what they'll do if they keep their rampage going."

A group of Marines guarded the door, and a weapons rack full of shotguns was sitting ready for use. Six, inside of the helmet, felt her eyes light up as she got sight of the scatter gun. Grabbing one, she left the SMGs behind. Loading up on ammunition, she was ready to go, and nodded to the Marine guard to open the door.

To her side, Johnson clapped her shoulder. "Go, save those men, get 'em out. I'll handle the bomb. Motor pool is your first stop, barracks isn't far past that."

Six nodded and set off at a jog, the Marines closing and locking the door behind her. Now, the only way out was to go through the Brutes ahead, and with the first pump of the shotgun cradled in her arms, a shell was loaded, and the door ahead opened with a whining creak.

A Brute chieftain, clad in black and orange armor, stood with arms crossed at the end of the rising slope in the motor pool. Several others knelt in front of him, heads bowed as he barked and growled in their guttural tongue, and Six pulled her battle rifle out to get ready for long range combat. Sighting in on the Chieftain, she put her crosshairs on his unarmored face and fired. The first burst snapped his head back, the second pinged off of his shields, the third hit him full on as he came to his senses, and the fourth burst made them flare and fail.

The heavy headdress took another burst as she continued to fire, spikes finally coming in as the Brutes came to their senses and returned fire. The sloped crest was ripped off of his bald head as her final three rounds hit home, leaving him exposed. He began to move, but took a bullet in the side of the skull and went down in fits and spasms. Six rolled to the side, out of the doorway, and took cover behind one of the heavy trucks that had been left abandoned on the side.

Reloading her battle rifle, she poked her head out and fired again at a Brute Minor, taking his knee out with an agonizing roar, finishing him off with a final burst. Three more were left, and she unclipped a grenade from her armor, standing out just long enough to throw it. Return fire came in immediately, and her shields fell just as the grenade left her hand. Spinning back into cover, another spike round, as big around as her fist, glanced off of her armor at high speed with a loud pinging noise.

She bit the inside of her cheek and waited for her shields to recharge before dashing across to the next bay, moving up whenever she could. With only two Brutes left after the detonation of her grenade, she pulled the shotgun out, ready to take them on. One charged her, angry at the loss of its Chieftain, and she put him down hard. The final Brute, however, had enough sense to throw what remained of his plasma grenades at her.

Six saw them coming, diving out of the way and taking cover as the bright detonations made her visor polarize a bit more to protect her eyes. The shotgun was ready as she came up, and the Brute was the sole object of her anger. She moved quickly, closing the distance and ignoring the spikes that made her shield continue to fail.

She was on him just as they popped, the shotgun blasting at his shoulder and, despite having just enough to pop his shield, she fired again quickly, and the arm was completely torn from him. A final shot ended the Brute's life as he roared at the barrel.

With the shotgun still smoking, the Spartan continued on, coming to a door that had been covered in rubble, a massive hole leading down to a ventilation shaft. With a sigh, she dropped into it, her knees absorbing the shock of almost half a ton of woman and armor.

Several pipes led into the sides and up, and Drones came through several, meeting blasts from Six's scattergun as they tried to go where they pleased. She wouldn't let them. Another hole in the floor led down a level, dropping into another room that bordered on a canal, and Six could see a landing pad hanging suspended above and braced on a lattice support structure.

The barracks was just ahead, and she could already hear screams through the heavy metal door. She carried on, ready to keep the few Marines that still drew breath alive. Palming the release switch to the door, it opened with a loud whine that grated on her enhanced ears.

Inside, slumped against a pillar, Six could already see the bodies of several crumpled Marines, none of them likely to still be alive. Another corpse came from the right, hitting the pillar with a sickening crack that made Six's blood boil. With nothing holding it, the newest victim of the Brutes was left abandoned on the bodies of his comrades, and Six was in motion.

A sniffing sound before she rounded the corner, and the cries of a Marine. One of the Brutes in the barracks knew she was there. "Do you smell it? A fresh scent, a close one. Track it down!"

The Marine that had been captured continued to call for help, and Six was moving as fast as she could, but before she could move in, she heard another snap and the cries ceased almost immediately, and Six's teeth bared in a snarl as yet another life was snuffed out.

One of the Brutes made it to the corner first, and came face to face with an angry Spartan and the mouth of a shotgun barrel. A pull of the trigger scattered the contents of his skull and his destroyed helmet across the wall, the loud report of the shotgun sending every Brute in the barracks into a startled halt.

_Chick-chak_

A new shell was chambered and Six swung around the corner, sights directly on the Brute that still held the Marine in his giant paws. The other Brute that had begun moving off to the side raised his spike rifle to fire, and Six's knife was out in a flash, thrown at the Brute and spinning end over end. It had only just left her fingers when she fired once, and then again, at the Brute Captain she had her sights on, blasting his armor away. Her third shell was entering the chamber when she heard the meaty thud of her knife sinking into the Brute Minor's eye, followed by a scream.

The Brute Captain, left defenseless, was covered in buckshot holes as she chambered her fourth round, already pulling shells from her ammunition pouch and loading them in quickly. The Minor, somehow still alive, charged her with a roar, running on all fours.

With her shotgun not ready yet, Six continued to load it, slotting the final shell in as the Brute made it within arms reach. One long, blue armored leg swung out in a lighting fast kick, the force of the heavy armor augmented by her own strength and that of Mjolnir, and it snapped the Brute's head back with enough power to break his neck outright. He fell limp, the momentum of his body carrying him into a slide until he hit the wall.

Six hadn't made a sound, and the pumping of the shotgun echoed once more in the barracks, something that sounded almost mocking to the Brutes closing on her position. A UNSC magnum lay loaded in a Marine's hand, and Six snatched it up. The weapon had been loaded and a round was in the chamber, but he hadn't been able to fire. He must have been one of the first casualties, and Six attached it to her thigh armor. The heavy magnum was a perfect sidearm for a Spartan.

Ripping her knife from the corpse it had been sunk into, Six looked up to see that three Brutes had come around the next corner, all Minors, and Six took aim with the shotgun. They were too far out for the pellet scatter. She rushed forward, bounding from pillar to pillar as she saw her shield take damage from a few spiker rounds. It had dropped to half.

She was halfway through the section of the barracks when her motion tracker revealed one of the Brutes was closing, and she was ready for him. He hadn't even turned the corner when the shotgun was swung in an underhanded arch, the barrel coming up as she uppercutted the Brute. Jaws clicked together loudly, and the sound of the trigger acted almost like an echo before the shotgun howled again.

Six grabbed the now limp body, using it as a meatshield as she advanced. The feeling of spiker rounds thumping into the Brute's back transferred into her shoulder, and she grunted as she waited for the fire to stop.

Eventually, the Brutes ran their ammo dry, and the Spartan dropped their comrade, already in a sprint for them. One Brute, despite the species prodigious strength, was completely bowled over as her shoulder smashed into his chest. The other Brute was within range, and with her current target on the ground, she opened fire on the one still standing. His armor was destroyed and he gave a yell. Two more shots of rapid fire shelling and he was laying in a pool of his own blood.

The Brute under Six was coming to his senses, and batted the barrel of the shotgun away. Six didn't try to fight it, ripping the magnum from its position on her thigh and jamming it against his flat face, pulling the trigger once, twice, and again, before the pistol returned to its holster, smoke wafting from the barrel.

The shotgun was loading again, the Spartan not wanting to let the tubular magazine run dry in close quarters. Peeking around the next section, she saw two more Minors and the bronze-gold armor of a Brute War Chieftain, hefting a heavy plasma cannon at his waist. He spotted her before she could pull back, however, and plasma bolts were already well on their way to her before she was in cover. Pieces of concrete were chipping off of the wall, pinging off of her armor as she cursed, lobbing a grenade around the corner.

The Brutes scattered, and she threw another, looking around at them this time. The grenade had landed next to one of the Brutes, hiding in a small alcove. With nowhere to go, he was torn to shreds by the fragmentation of the grenade. Her battle rifle was out and stuck around the corner, chattering loudly as she suppressed the Brute that was stunned from two rapid detonations.

His shielding fell and he followed it soon after. That left only the War Chieftain. Six, however, was the prey now. The battle rifle was grabbed at the forestock, and as she saw the giant paw holding it, she began to fire as fast as the rifle could cycle its bolt. It didn't matter as the weapon clicked empty and was ripped away.

The massive Brute, wearing the ceremonial armor that was even more intimidating than that she had seen on Reach, roared in her face. The shotgun swung up and she fired only once, before it was pushed up. The shielding on the Brute flared brightly but held strong, and with the shotgun now without a shot, she was caught out.

Six only had time to brace herself as the Chieftain dropped his plasma cannon to the floor below and charged her. War Chieftains, being some of the biggest Brutes in any pack, were never to be fought at such close range, and Six was about to find out why the hard way.

One arm, as wide as a tree trunk, was around her, the Brute roaring as he picked her up and ran the dozen feet to the support pillar behind her. Six continued to beat and bash the Brute's head and shoulders, but it made no difference. The combined weight of the two broke the pillar completely and the Chieftain carried on through, until they impacted against one of the main walls.

The Spartan grunted, her breath leaving her as her body cried out in pain, and she realized she wouldn't be able to kill it like this before it broke her back. Reaching around the Brute's arm, she pulled the magnum from its holster and held it to the Brute's head. The impact had been enough to weaken the shields of both combatants, but as the magnum's loud report sounded, the Chieftain's shields flared.

They broke after the fourth shot, and it took several more to penetrate the heavy helmet he wore. With one final shot penetrating the Chieftain's skull, the pistol clicked empty, but the Chieftain pushed on, roaring in pain and anger.

Now, with Six held in two massive arms, she felt her armor giving out, and alarms started blaring in her ears as she fought to keep her scream in. Taking the pistol by the barrel, she started to pistol whip the Brute with it, every hit impacting where the bullets had deformed and torn the headdress he wore. More yells of pain from both sides saw Six finally smashing the brute's skull, collapsing it and her with it.

Being dropped to the ground as the brute went down, she felt herself struggling to draw air in, her armor protesting the treatment it had taken, but it would have to keep going. On her hands and knees, Six coughed as she managed to finally take a breath, letting the magnum go and leaving the warped weapon where it had come down. Looking at it, she shook her head and sighed, moving to grab her shotgun from where it had fallen, as well as her battle rifle, and reloaded both.

Her back was aching from where it had been clamped in the vice grip the Brute Chieftain had held her in, and she tried to ignore the pain. Looking around the barracks, it had fallen silent, bodies of both Humans and Brutes strewn about like life sized dolls. Puddles and rivers of blood were leading everywhere, the red of Marines and the off-red that the Brutes had mixing and staining the concrete floors as it soaked in.

She hadn't been able to save them. She was never able to save them. Always too little, too late, and she felt the anger, and the hate, rise up inside of her. Noble Six had tried her hardest to push these thoughts and feelings deep inside. A Spartan with more than just the combat on their mind was dangerous, more prone to slip ups, and more likely to be killed.

With a struggle that she knew she would be facing again soon, she managed to put her mental issues back in their box, hidden away from the light of day for another few hours. She would need to redirect that anger, to make it useful, or she had a feeling she might not make it.

Moving ahead, away from the barracks that housed only ghosts, she came to a lift, and stewed silently while it slowly came down. She was on it the moment it touched down, and heading up to a landing pad above.

There was a single Pelican on it, and Six recognized the woman in the front seat. Commander Keyes was at the helm, with the flirty pilot Hocus just behind her, once again sealed away in her flight helmet.

Before Six could say anything, Johnson was on the radio, plasma fire and the roar of an Elite heard in the distance, along with the staccato chatter of assault rifles. " _Commander! We lost the ops center! Brutes came in force, couldn't hold them off. We're moving to the hangar now._ "

Hocus, always professional, hesitated as she saw Six coming closer. " _What should I do, ma'am?_ "

Keyes snarled over the comm. " _Hold position! I'm not leaving him!_ "

Six was already out onto the pad, moving to head to the opposite side and then the ops center. She would retake it on her own if need be. That's when she heard the roars of jetpacks.

Hocus' drawl sounded over the radio, cool even under the conditions. " _Brutes with jump packs! They're lighting up my sensors above and below!_ "

" _Get us moving,_ _Lieutenant! They'_ _ll be_ _going for the thrusters!_ "

" _Aye ma'am, Kilo-Two-Three bugging out!_ "

Six was halfway across, in the center of the landing pad as the Pelican lifted off and began to vacate the landing pad. The chin gun opened up with a burst from its chin gun, shell casings raining down in a hail of brass as the gun growled loudly. Several Brutes wearing jetpacks came over the edge and into the opening for the landing pad. They were the unlucky ones. Those that had been hit by the Pelican's barrage were already dead on the ground outside, torn to shreds. These Brutes would die slower, locked in combat with Noble Six.

Three came down, landing and taking a moment to balance themselves, but Six would have none of it. One of the Brutes had landed within arm's reach almost, and she made sure that he paid dearly for his mistake, and the mistakes of his brethren laying dead in the barracks and across the base. Her shotgun roared and at such close range, the blast hitting shields that had no give meant his neck was snapped by the force, the shielding going out and leaving the pellets to fall with their target.

Another one, ready to fight, rushed her, and she spun around it with little fanfare. A shotgun blast to the back of his jetpack and it malfunctioned, sending the Brute careening into the cave wall and then to the deep waters below. There was no way out for him, the walls of the cave far too smooth for a Brute to scale.

Racking the slide, the final shell in her shotgun was ejected, and with only a few shells left in her ammo pouch, she frowned. Six wasn't pleased with the thought of losing one of her strongest weapons, and with the ops center having fallen, it would sorely be missed.

The final jump packing Brute came at her, flailing his arms in a wild attempt at hitting the Spartan and getting a lucky connection. Six mentally shook her head. If only all enemies were so pitiful. A shell loaded directly into the chamber of her shotgun was enough to drop his shields and, swinging the weapon by its barrel with a quick flick of her wrists, she caved the jumper's skull in with ease, satisfied with how easily it had gone down.

Six looked down the corridor that led towards the ops center, Johnson and a few Marines running towards her, with the Arbiter following close behind, an ignited energy sword in one hand and a plasma rifle in the other.

"Kilo-Two-Three, landing pad is clear, I can see Johnson now. Bring her back down, Hocus."

" _Aye, ma'am, Kilo-Two-Three returning for final evac. You joining us, Lieutenant?_ "

"Negative, Hocus. I have the ops center. Get Johnson and the rest of the Marines out of here, and I'll find my own way out."

" _...Yes ma'am, good luck. I'll see you on the other side._ "

"It's a date, then."

Despite the situation and Six's bordering on suicidal mission to return to the ops center and retake it on what might be a solo crusade, Hocus chuckled. " _I'll hold you to it._ "

Johnson came up the stairs, his head wound reopened in the fighting and trickling blood once again. A Marine was hung between him and what turned out to be Gunnery Sergeant Stacker, a trio of Marines following close behind with weapons ready.

Johnson gestured to one of the marines to come forward and take the unconscious Marine, turning to Six once his burden was handled. "There were too many in there to take on, even for me. They have one of those big gold bastards, had a fuel rod cannon. Whole place is gonna be setting off rad alarms when you go in. You sure you wanna do this?"

Six, her battle rifle cradled in her arms once more, nodded. "Suicide missions are my specialty, Sergeant Major."

Johnson didn't look convinced, his brow furrowing. "Now don't you go throwing your life away-"

Six held up a hand, already moving past him. "I won't. I'll get the ops center back, and I'll make sure that bomb goes off. I'll be seeing you, Johnson."

The Marine went to open his mouth, but he knew the longer he delayed her, the lower her chances of surviving got, and the Pelican waiting on him was full of Marines that needed to get out. Turning away from her, he nodded to himself. "Yeah, be seeing you."

With Six's back being the last thing that the Pelican saw of the Spartan, Keyes frowned, but realized what Six was doing. Yet again, she would be leaving the Spartan behind, but knew that they couldn't wait any longer. "Get us out of here, Hocus."

"Aye ma'am."

Six, boots ringing on the steel stairs, heard the Pelican throttle up and lift off the of the open air landing pad. The sound of engines followed her into the main cargo corridor for only a few seconds more, before it was silent. All that was left now was the sound of her boots echoing off of the concrete flooring and her own breathing. Red warning lights were still flashing their slow rhythm, reminding her that things had only gone from bad to worse, as missions for Spartans usually did.

"Breaks over, Six," she told herself, mind drawn to the words that Carter had said to her not long after she had met Noble. Picking up the pace, she jogged through the corridor, taking count of her ammunition. A pair of magazines for the battle rifle, and only six more shells in the shotgun. They would have to do, and if she ran out, she'd take what she could from the Brutes themselves, or if it came down to it, she would use her fists. It wouldn't be her first rodeo.

The ammunition she had was enough to get her through the gauntlet of plasma cannons and light infantry, and the smoking barrel of her battle rifle clattered to the floor before the last echoes of gunfire had faded away. The shotgun had been barely used, none of the enemies she had faced requiring the raw power of the shotgun's buckshot. She had decided to save it for a rainy day, and with the ops center just ahead, it was about to pour.

A carbine was held securely in the blue armored arms, a full magazine in it and several more hooked into one of her ammo pouches. The motor pool she had engaged the Brute chieftain in earlier had been left full of bodies, even after the Covenant had retaken it. The only difference was the Brute pack now had company in death. It had been the final hurdle between her and the ops center.

The door lock mechanism was a bright green, with the door itself hanging open. Another remained ahead, leading into the ops center itself. Pressing her hand to the locking mechanism, the ops center opened to her, and the new owners of the base stood where she had been only an hour before.

A Brute War Chieftain stood with arms crossed, a fuel rod cannon resting on the ground next to him, leaned up against the now disarmed bomb. A trio of other Brutes were kneeling, eyes glued to the main screen, where the Prophet of Truth's scowling face sat.

The rack of weapons next to the door was still there, along with the remaining ammunition from earlier. Quietly, she grabbed several shells and dumped them into an empty pouch. Finally, she took aim with the carbine, crosshairs resting on the fuel rod gun. "I hope you bastards have good insurance," she muttered, and pulled the trigger.

The shot rang out in the synthetic cough that belonged to the Covenant DMR, the shot ringing true and hitting the fuel rod cannon dead on. An explosion sounded and the War Chieftain was consumed in radioactive green fire. Even from here, Six's radiation alarms were going off. That wasn't a problem for her, though, in her sealed armor, and she made the most of it. Her finger hooked the trigger and pulled as fast as it would cycle new rounds.

The Brutes reacted quickly, she would give them that. Plasma fire and spiker rounds came in like hail, and Six ducked back into the cover that the ammo box provided. It shuddered heavily under the barrage it was taking, and plasma must have hit some of the remaining ammo, because pops and cracks sounded as the rounds on the other side cooked off.

A frag unhooked from her belt and was out into the ops center, missing its pin. It detonated a moment later and the incoming fire slacked off as Six rounded the ammo box and returned fire. A massive blackened area had been scorched next to the bomb, but hadn't detonated any of the explosives on it.

A Brute went down with a new hole in his head, and another was suffering from the heavy bleeding that fragmentation caused. He was crawled for a weapon, his own having been destroyed, and Six ended his journey before he could get to it. The final Brute, however, was tucked into his own cover, and Six advanced with her carbine firing in short intervals, holding the weapon one handed as the shotgun was pulled from her back.

When she was close enough, the Brute roared and came out swinging, but he was put on his back by a point blank shotgun blast, the slide pumping as she took it in both hands.

Satisfied, she moved to the bomb, and her armored finger had almost started the countdown, when she was hit from behind. Her shields dropped to half, and another crushing hit came to kill them completely. Alarms screeched in her helmet, and she let her instincts take over. A lack of situational awareness had killed Kat, but it would not claim Morgan.

Rolling to the side, the bomb's casing was slightly dented by the force of a giant hairy fist. Six's visor reflected the sight, and she realized she had made a mistake. The Brute Chieftain was alive, armor singed and burned, missing on his left side. Part of his helmet had been melted away, revealing a partially complete face that ended in a mess of sinews and muscle as the skin had been burned away. Cursing, she brought the shotgun to bear, but it was ripped away and thrown. A roar from the Chieftain covered her visor in flecks of spittle and blood, and her fist replied in kind as she knocked a few teeth loose.

It wasn't enough. The Brute was back on top of her before even she could react, another hammer blow hitting her chest plate. Six coughed, feeling her ribs shift under the assault, but nothing had broken yet. That would change if she didn't get distance.

Her feet kicked out like pistons, hitting the massive alien in the midsection. More blood was coughed up from the hits, the Chieftain stumbling back before a wheezing roar came again, and a massive hammer was pulled from his thigh. It looked less like the huge warhammers they carried, more like a close quarters weapon for fights like this. She had no doubt that if she got hit by that, it would be over.

A hit swung out, Six ducking below it and coming up with her knife already out and glinting in the failing lights of the ops center. The blade sunk into the Brute's arm just above the elbow, ripping up a few inches before Six withdrew. Another roar and the hammer came back in. Six tried to dodge again, but a glancing blow hit her shoulder pauldron and threw her off balance. She rolled with it, coming up as the Brute charged once more. With no way to dodge in either direction or to the rear, she charged forward, just barely avoiding another hammer blow as she took the Brute down with a half ton tackle.

Even the Chieftain faultered beneath such force, and Six pushed again, throwing him to the ground. He brought the hammer up, aiming for her face, but it mattered little as she threw her arm up just below the head of the weapon. Her other hand, still clutching the knife, buried it in his eye. The Chieftain screamed in pain, and Six yanked the knife out. Her hand was off the blade as it returned to its scabbard, and her final grenade was yanked from its home on her belt. The Brute's agony would be the death of him.

With a mouth wide open, Six pushed the grenade in bottom first, shattering what teeth remained as her fist forced entry. Pulling it back, the pin came with it, and Six rolled away. The muffled screams were halted as the explosion blew what was left of the Chieftain's face to bits.

A cleared ops center and a breathless Spartan remained. She shook her head, feeling something cold go up her spine, but she was running out of time. Six moved for the bomb, putting in the arming code and setting the timer for five minutes. It was just enough time to get out. She couldn't chance the Covenant taking the place and disarming it again. She was wary about her ability to take the ops center alone a second time. With the chirp of the timer and the green light, she keyed her radio. "This is Six, bomb is armed."

Keyes was the first to respond. " _Good work, Lieutenant. We've got your exit. Hangar bay 03 has a service elevator leading to one of the motor pools. Head downstairs, cut through the caves, exfil on the ground. We'll link up with you soon. Keyes out._ "

Not willing to waste anymore time, Six scooped her carbine up and started to run, but passing by the Brute once more, she stopped and grabbed its hammer, hooking it to her left hip, opposite her knife. With a burst of speed, she was out, going back down the stairs and through the cave that had been filled with Covenant infantry now. She had been just a little too fast for them. Any longer with that Brute and reinforcements would have gotten the jump on her.

Alarms started blaring through the base, a computerized voice warning of imminent self destruction. Grunts and Jackals took their places, some screaming and fleeing, others standing against the Spartan that would still rip through them like wet tissue paper. Those that blocked her path met a grizzly end, and she was once again in the main corridor. The Warthog that had been destroyed earlier was finished smoldering, and she regretted not being able to stop to grab their tags. The funeral pyre she had set for them would have to do.

Her breathing was loud in her ears, overcoming even the sound of the alarms and the swarm of Drones following close behind her. Plasma fire came in, splashing against the back of her shields and nearly dropping them completely before she turned into the hangar corridor.

A short run left her with the hangar wide open in front of her, a Phantom trying to load up what troops it could. The nose plasma cannon fired, splashing across the base's walls as Six tried to dodge around it. The elevator was to the right, behind a phalanx of Jackals.

Six cursed. It had to be Jackals, didn't it? She didn't stop running, her shields only barely recharging to full strength before she started taking fire again. The plasma hit her directly, dropping them to a quarter of their strength, and the shielding system wailed its disapproval of her tactics, but she ignored it. Pushing herself to go even faster, she barreled straight through the shield wall the Jackals had made and kept going, the service elevator coming into view as a muted thump sounded behind her. The bomb had gone off, and with it, the secondary charges laced throughout the base.

The Spartan rolled into it and slapped the elevator's controls, with the door shutting even as flames began to lick at the cracks. A feeling of fear grabbed at Six's heart, the elevator descending far too slowly for her liking, and above, the open roof of the platform showed the fire break through the door and travel down the shaft faster than the elevator could have ever hoped to move.

Covering her visor with her arms, Six felt the heat wash over her as the armor tried to compensate. The elevator beneath her feet shuddered, groaned, and gave out, and the falling sensation that came with it snatched her stomach from her, and just as quickly it had stopped, slamming Six into the ground as even her powerful legs failed to hold her up.

With the ground rushing up to meet her, Six's helmet hit the floor with a sickening crack, and her vision went black almost completely. Struggling against the darkness, Six's energy was taken from her, and everything was gone as Noble Six succumbed to the impact.


	3. Exodus

_Just take the food, Morgan!_

_What's the matter, Morgan? Need something?_

_You disappeared on me, Morgan._

_I'll take that, Morgan. Not your domain._

_Morgan._

_Morgan._

_Morgan!_

_Crack_

* * *

In a dark room, lit by the fires that had been set during the destruction of Crow's Nest, Morgan-B312 drew air into her lungs in a gasp, the voice of a woman long buried ringing in her ears. Hot, still air passed over her face and her nose wrinkled in reaction. The feeling of a trickle of warm liquid crawling down her left eye, nose, and across her lips was an ever present irritant as the sole survivor of Noble felt reality take hold of her once more. Her break was over.

Flickering flames caused long shadows to creep across the concrete walls, and then a bright light scared away the darkness, nearly blinding her heavily enhanced eyes. Blinking them shut against the light, she shook her head, a hand reaching out on instinct to push whatever held the light away, to make her safe once more in the darkness that kept the war at bay. She wanted so badly to lay there, to let the darkness consume her, but she knew deep in her heart that it wasn't time for that. The war wouldn't be much longer, and she needed to be there when it finished. Either it would end with Humanity as the victor, or it suddenly wouldn't be her problem anymore.

A grunt and a weary cheer went up as something was pushed into her hand, something that weighed a decent amount. A voice, Human, called out in the darkness. "Sarge! She's waking up!"

Six's mind began to register everything that was going on. After the first jolt of alert and the realization she wasn't in danger, she felt groggy, lethargic, as if she was waking from a deep sleep. Green eyes took in their surroundings as she sat up on her own. No Marines would be able to lift Mjolnir and her together without a winch or a dozen pairs of hands.

The object in her hand, her helmet, looked back at her in silent judgment. How dare she let it get away from her? Thoughts of her own mirrored the helmet's golden glare. She had lost it some time after the fall, after being knocked out.

Lit by the fires, she could see the opened wound on her forehead, leaking blood. She almost brought her hand up to wipe it away, when a familiar face came down next to her helmet, face lighting up as it came closer.

Gunnery Sergeant Reynolds gave her a halfhearted smile. "Glad to see you made it, ma'am. When that elevator brought you down on it, scared all of us half to death thinking you'd bought the farm." In his hand was a first aid kit, opened and missing most of its materials. A cloth and a bandage came out of it in his other hand, holding them out for Six.

Six appreciated his help, nodding and taking the cloth and wiping away some of the blood, before she bandaged the wound with one of the larger square adhesives. The rest of the blood followed after, but she still felt it on her skin, some of the blood having dried on her with the rest of the dirt and grime. Mjolnir was getting an endurance test again. Same shit, different planet.

"No rest for the wicked, Gunny," she responded, looking around at the other figures that sat in the underground motor pool of Crow's Nest. Marines sat in various states of health. Some sat resting against the wall, bandaged all over, and others with less luck lay covered in whatever cloth or tarp could be found. "Looks like you boys have been through hell."

Reynolds shrugged, looking around at the Marines he had left. "'Bout as much as anybody else has been today. All part of the job."

Six snorted, despite herself. "They get you with the whole 'see the universe' spiel too?" A lie cloaked in humor, something Six had picked up during her time with Noble, but she had come to find that it soothed the morale of those around her, and took some of the edge of a Spartan off. Still a killing machine, a freak, but one they could relate to.

"Naw, they gave me the choice between this or prison," he responded dryly, half a smirk on his dirty features.

"Prison, huh? What'd you do to get jail time?"

White teeth shined in the darkness as the Gunnery Sergeant let the smirk grow into a full smile. He had been through too much today, they all had, and a smile was the first step to things improving. "Slept with the district governor's daughter. Made it about a hundred yards before they got me. Left one of my favorite shirts behind. Never got it back after, but I guess that's the price of doing business."

Six had a similar smile on her face, the model like features that Spartans had been graced with by dint of genetics taking on an Amazonian look under the soot that had fallen on her face after the fall. "Let's get up and moving then, we'll find you another one on the way."

Rising up from her seated position, Reynolds held out a hand to pull her up. She let him pull and tug, not moving an inch until she saw the strain on his features. He opened his mouth to say something, but a female Marine just off to the side, wearing the red on white medical cross painted on her helmet and shoulder pauldrons beat him to it. "Don't say anything about a lady's weight now, Sarge!"

Reynolds looked over at the corpsman, seemingly helpless, and shut his mouth as Six got to her feet on her own, the soot covered blue helmet in her hand finally going back onto her head.

Rolling her neck to work the seal back together, she started to test the joints in her armor, diagnostics already running as the shield system completed itself once more in a golden lattice that lightened the dirty faces of the surviving Marines before disappearing.

Satisfied that she was good to go, she looked around. Nine Marines in total had survived the fall, with Reynolds and the corpsman being two, and three of them being heavily wounded. Reynolds was the only NCO that had made it, however, and the corpsman wasn't a Marine at all, belonging to the Navy.

Six heard static in her ear before a high toned ping sounded, connecting her to the UNSC network again. A hail directed with her authentication code had been picked up by the armor, and with the helmet being powered up again, she held up a hand to quiet the Marines before broadcasting it out loud for those that didn't have Mjolnir's powerful comms suite. "This is Noble Six, does anyone read?"

A few moments of static that seemed to weaken, picking up for the last time before the familiar voice of Commander Keyes sounded through the helmet speakers, fighting to be heard through the dense static. " _Noble Six, thank God you're alive. When your transponder winked out, we thought we'd lost you. What's your status?_ "

Six looked around, taking count of the Marines. "I'm up. Several Marines survived the base's demolition, but we've got wounded." Looking to Reynolds, she continued. "Gunny, what's our vehicle status?"

Keyes kept silent, hearing Reynolds reply. "We've got two Warthogs combat effective, one armed with an LAAG and the other for troop transportation. The rest are all dead in the water with no way to fix them."

Keyes hummed as the armor transmitted the Gunny's report, likely looking over maps of the area. " _Understood. Head for the town of Voi, link up with Marine forces there. Be advised, heavy Covenant ground presence is between you and them. Be careful. Keyes out._ "

The static stopped as the channel cut, and Six took the weapon that Reynolds had pulled from a pile for her, checking the magazine for ammunition. With a full mag of ammo, she slid it onto her back. "You heard her, Marines. We load up and get out of here before the Covenant comes looking. If we survived, then so did some of them. Load whatever wounded we can transport into the troop carrier. Reynolds, you'll drive that, and the corpsman will be with you. I'll need a driver for the M41. It'll leave me the most exposed, but my armor can take the hits. Everybody else pile into the troop carrier, it'll need the protection the most. Everyone clear?" Nobody said anything except for the corpsman muttering to one of the wounded. "Good, get up, gear up, roll out."

The Marines, with guidance on what to do, leaped into action, splitting up to carry those that were wounded to the motor pool on the opposite side of the elevator. Six led the way through, spotting the lighting control panel on the wall and slapping it. Lights fluttered on, some remaining dim, others flickering, and one not coming on at all. A weapons crate held more ammunition and a shotgun, which Six made sure to grab. She was still in possession of the shells picked up before the fight in the ops center, and they would serve her well.

The M41 and the troop carrier Hogs sat waiting, hulls gleaming in the low light. Six climbed up onto the rear gunner's platform, spinning the barrels and checking for linkage failures. The gun seemed to be alright, and she nodded, pleased to see that not everything was going entirely badly.

Reynolds hit the switch to the massive blast door that led to the outside, before starting up his own Warthog, the Marines carrying the wounded to the transport bay for the other. Climbing in the back with them, the corpsman stabilized them however she could, before giving Reynolds the okay.

The Marine in her own Warthog started it, the big LRV growling to life and shuddering as the power plant did its job. Six opened a channel to the Marines, Reynolds having taken a small earpiece to act as his connection to her. She frowned at his lack of protective helmet, but said nothing about it. "Alright, roll out, keep a spacing of ten meters. If we get engaged, keep the troop hog back and prepare weapons in case anything gets by or tries to flee in your direction."

A chorus of affirmatives went up and the Warthogs started moving, the convoy rolling up onto the raised midsection and out of the motor pool. A cave system was between the base and the outside world, and it was lit by lights strung throughout them. Six didn't know what was powering the lights, but it kept them from having to use the Warthog's floodlight assembly for now. The caves zigzagged several times, before natural light started to pour in.

At the end of the tunnel system, a squad of Grunts and several Jackals were milling about, searching a small gatekeeping section that led back into the destroyed base. Six, finger on the trigger, pulled it back and opened fire. Heavy rounds meant to pull aircraft out of the sky butchered the infantry, ripping limbs off of the thin bodies of the Jackals and Grunts. Even those that had their shields in place before they got hit suffered broken bones from the force of the fire, and when the shields went down, were shredded just as their allies had been.

Six let off as the enemy infantry was wiped out. "Conserve ammo, the LAAG has enough for sustained use. Rifles only when I'm dealing with a priority target or they get within fifty meters."

The Warthog growled as the driver pushed the pedal down a bit further, and the two LRVs emerged into the midday sun. Six noticed something was amiss, however, giant rings scattered across the landscape, partially buried from the weight and force they had come down with. Trenches had been torn into the earth as whatever didn't settle had bounced or rolled.

" _Space elevator collapsed when that carrier jumped out last month, Lieutenant._ " Reynolds was the first to respond, the sound of the wind carrying through the channel.

"It came down all the way out here?" It was a space elevator, so of course it was big, but Voi was over a hundred kilometers away from the elevator's tether point.

" _Yeah, damn thing is scattered all across the Savannah now. Got transmissions from the city, some people survived the EMP pulse, but with the elevator coming down, a lot got smashed under it. Cable didn't go very far, but the stabilizing rings landed everywhere._ "

Six frowned. The Covenant had taken only a day to destroy one of the most prosperous cities on the planet, and one of the six orbital elevators. Here, nearly a month later, she could see the devastation that had been brought to Humanity's cradle. Massive swaths of land had been burned away as the Covenant's cruisers glassed the African landscape, and with the UNSC Home Fleet in ruins above Earth, they would continue to dig and glass unhindered.

The dirt beneath their tires gave way to paved road, albeit cracked and covered in holes. Voi was nearly ten miles away. There were detours, routes with more cover, but would nearly double the trip's length at the least. The Tsavo Highway would get them to the rendezvous point quickly, and whatever decided to harass them would become well acquainted with Six's gunnery skills.

In the distance, she could see the cruisers hanging in the sky, energy projectors firing in increments, as if they were being precise rather than just trying to glass the place. It confused her. They were on their enemy's homeworld, with nothing stopping them from glassing it completely, like all the other worlds. Like Reach. Why weren't they finishing it?

It didn't matter in the end. She was a gun on legs, meant to kill whatever wasn't Human or, as of recently, Elites. The cruisers were the Navy's job, not hers.

The Marines chattered on the frequency they had claimed as their own. It wasn't secured, but then again, nothing was at this point. Six kept herself keyed into it, listening to them to pass the time as she continued to scan the skies for Banshees or more Phantoms, but a command channel opening, or a hail, would hit her ears immediately.

" _See anything coming, Lieutenant?"_ Reynolds, twenty feet back, asked.

"Nothing, Gunny. If we're lucky, we'll be able to link up with the others without being spotted, but you know how it goes."

" _Copy that."_

Silence fell over them as they passed by a burned out Warthog, laying on its side with a wheel missing. There were no bodies left, but there were several trails in the soil where something had been dragged. Weapons had been left behind, but Six spotted the blood that had stained the soil, and the anger began to heat up once more. The furnace deep inside of her was smoldering, but never completely out.

They all knew what had happened, and a muttered curse went up over the radio, but nobody reprimanded the speaker for it. The Brutes were animals, the worst of the aliens that had been fought. Elites had, over the years, been seen as the height of the Covenant's military prowess, and had butchered as many Humans as the rest, but they didn't _eat_ _their enemy alive_.

Six would work with the Elites if it meant Humanity made it through the end of this war, but she would _never_ work with Brutes, never let one continue to draw breath in her presence. Things had always been personal for her, owing the loss of everything in her life to the alien menace, but the Brutes were something else. They would be treated as they had treated Humanity. She would make sure of it.

A flight of Hornets passed overhead, the turbofans screeching loudly as they moved towards Voi. Six watched them go, sighing in relief. Hornets moving that way were likely moving to provide close air support, or to hunt down Covenant air assets. That they kept on their route without changing course meant that there was nothing nearby to bother the small convoy. She would take everything she could get at this point. Her Marines would make it through this, if she had anything to say about it.

A new channel came to life, filled with static and a familiar voice. " _-eat, my convoy's been hit, I've got wounded-_ " Six tried to dial in, straining to hear the rest through the static as she searched for identity tags at maximum range. " _We're on the Tsavo Highway about… east of Voi. Someone, anyone, please, respond!_ "

The channel cut out, the static washing over it completely as Six left it manually. Given that she could hear Keyes even beneath Crowe's nest, that meant the convoy's radio had been damaged. "Reynolds, you hear all that?"

" _That's a big affirm, Spartan. You thinking what I'm thinking?"_

"Great minds and all that, Gunny. I'll clear the way." Cutting her communicator, she leaned forward, one hand still on the gun, and tapped her driver, identity tag reading as Private Montoya, Will A. "Step on it, Private. We're gonna bail that convoy out."

"Yes, ma'am!" With a whoop, he pressed the pedal down, the Warthog leaping forward as he fed more power to the massive hydrogen engine inside. The engine roared loudly, taking the potholes and cracks in the road with elegance only a vehicle like it could.

Checking over her shoulder, she saw Reynolds keeping pace, but avoiding some of the heavier potholes. It wouldn't do to keep bouncing the wounded more than they already did on this crumbling road.

Looking to the front, she could see the black smoke rising up ahead. One of the vehicles in that convoy had to have been destroyed. They were going as fast as the Warthogs could go, but it still wasn't enough. They'd take a few more minutes to arrive. Checking the ammunition load for the M41, she had around a thousand rounds left in the container, and another ammo can hung next to the jerry cans filled with water. Things would be fine for now, but if they ran into a Covenant blocking force, she wasn't sure how long it'd hold up.

The rest of the trip was taken in silence, until they came around a large hill off to the left and spotted the convoy, under siege by a Covenant line. "Montoya, bust through the bastards."

"With pleasure!" The Warthog growled loudly, drowned out by the sound of the M41 opening up as Six fired at the far side of the line. If she fired at the center, it would increase the risk of friendly fire. Tracer rounds were still coming from the Warthogs that had been placed like an old wagon train.

The Covenant were caught unaware at first, several light infantry getting ripped to shreds as the heavy rounds tore into their undefended rear. The Brutes were the first to respond, and spiker rounds burrowed into the windshield. Montoya didn't flinch, seeming to grow even more inspired under the heavy fire as they ran straight into the Covenant's line.

A Brute that hadn't been able to move in time was sucked under the wheels, nearly gored by the tusks that flanked the Warthog's winch system. A whoop sounded as he passed over the new speed bump, and Reynolds pushed through right behind them as the M41 went into a drift that had the vehicle moving nearly sideways, the cannon spitting rounds the whole time.

Covenant were laid low as Six's marksmanship was spot on, more spiker rounds glancing off the windshield and hood armor. Plasma splashed against the gun shield on the M41, others hitting her armor and dropping her shields bit by bit from near misses.

The troop hog behind her had stopped, completing the circle the hogs had made as the wounded were pulled out and into the interior of the circle. The Marines inside went prone and fired under the roll cage, using the sides of the cargo bed as cover.

Montoya turned the wheel to the right, heading for the end of the line, and gunned it. The first Covenant were once again sucked under the massive tires, and adjustments to the wheel had him following the Covenant's whole force, making speed bumps of the whole group as Six weakened whatever was ahead with the gun.

The final Brute and his squad fell back from the line, firing as they went, and the three red hot barrels of the M41 made sure they never made it home. They had invaded this world, and they would die on it.

Montoya turned back towards the convoy that had been halted, and Six saw the voice that she had heard on the radio. Gunnery Sergeant Stacker was talking to Reynolds, looking relieved to have been as close as he was. "Take us over, Montoya, park us up on this side of the circle and take a drink from your canteen while we're stopped. You hit?"

"No, ma'am, I'm all good. Windshield is a bit messed up though."

"Good, as long as it's holed and not you."

Montoya did as he was told, and Six held onto the gun as the Warthog parked, the barrels cooling down already. Stacker waved at the Spartan, Reynolds moving off to help the corpsman stabilize any wounded in Stacker's convoy.

"Damn good thing you showed up when you did. We were about to get overrun. Only thing missing from that whole ordeal was a horn playing Dixie."

Six smiled beneath her helmet. "You know me, always happy to pull you out of the fire. You good to move? Rendevouz point is at Voi. We can evac the wounded there if the skies stay clear, but the sooner we get there the better."

"One of the troop carriers got wrecked, lost some of our wounded, but the rest are still good to move. We get loaded back up and we can roll out immediately, ma'am."

"Good, do it."

Stacker went to work getting everything loaded up, and Six scanned through the channels that were still broadcasting. Mostly Marine distress signals and the E-band was still blaring the same warning signal that everybody had heard when the Nest had fallen. Keyes still hadn't sent anything out, likely trying to keep herself from being tracked.

Panning the gun from left to right along the highway, Six frowned. Crow's Nest had been filled with wounded, rather than able bodied men. Either it had been used as a staging point for the area and taken heavy casualties, or as a medical point for wounded patrols to evacuate to. The Marine forces in the area around Voi had likely been smashed against a brick wall repeatedly. The massive storm that was forming off in the distance only made things worse. Fighting in heavy storm conditions was never good, and with wounded present in high numbers, they would need shelter.

A tap came at her boot, and she looked down to see Montoya offering his opened canteen to her. She stared for a moment, taken aback, and after a quick glance around, she took a knee and took the canteen into her hands. Unsealing her helmet with one hand, she pulled it up just far enough to expose her nose and mouth. Taking a deep swig of the canteen, she felt the still-cold water travel down her throat. It was more satisfying than she had expected it to be. Her stomach rumbled loudly, reminding her she hadn't eaten in a couple days. She could subsist off of whatever Mjolnir recycled, and water would keep her going for up to two weeks at a time, but the thought of solid food in her gut sounded like heaven right now. Another small drink from it and she put the cap back on, handing it back to the Private with a nod of thanks before her helmet came back down over her pale features.

Static sounded in her ears as Stacker and his men joined the channel. " _Ready to go, ma'am, on your order._ "

"Copy, Gunny. Montoya, get us moving. Keep convoy spacing and be ready. Stacker, have your other M41 take up the rear, in case anything comes from behind us. Designating M41s as Alpha 1 and 2, transports are Bravo 1 through 4 in order of the convoy. Keep your numbers, people."

" _Copy all, Bravo 1 out._ "

The convoy got under way quickly, moving as fast as they had before the distress call had gone out. A tunnel burrowed through a hill up ahead, and Six couldn't see the other end as the tunnel curved around to the left. Montoya kept going, not slowing down without Six's order.

They passed into the shade, the heat doing little for the Marines with the humidity in the air. Six was grateful Mjolnir had climate control. Even now, her temperature gauge read just over 100 degrees, having fallen only a few degrees passing into the tunnel. Six kept an eye out for armor lights in the darkness, the Brute's equipment would give them away in the low light.

They made it through without incident, however, but the sound of engines nearly deafened the convoy as something large passed over them. A Covenant CCS Class Battlecruiser blocked the sun behind its massive silver hull, the displacement of air around it buffeting the Warthogs and forcing the drivers to fight against the wind pushing them.

The command channel beeped three times quickly, a priority hail to Commander Keyes herself. " _Commander, this is ONI Recon One-Eleven,_ _the cruisers have found something!_ "

Keyes was quick to answer, voice still wreathed in static, but Six understood what she said. " _Copy your last, One-Eleven. Go ahead._ "

" _They're digging something up, ma'am. Something is beneath the storm, inside the crater. Doesn't look natural._ "

" _Roger One-Eleven. Can you maintain position?_ "

" _Negative, ma'am. Greer is calling us back now. We'll upload whatever we can, but we have limited bandwidth._ _One-Eleven, out._ "

Six frowned, looking back towards the crater for a moment. She could see shapes forming along the massive construct that was steadily coming into view. Long, thin bars that met each other near the middle. They were immune to the low yield of the energy projectors, the heavy plasma bombardment merely burning away the dirt and stone, but leaving no marks on whatever was below.

Montoya began slowing down, calling out. "Ma'am! Road's out ahead!"

With a look back to the front, Six saw that he was right. A break in the road kept them from going forward. The M41s could make the jump easily, but the troop carriers being as loaded down as they were with wounded, she wasn't chancing an attempt at having all of them jump the gap. Looking off to the left, she spotted a hole in the steel safety railing on the side of the road, leading into a dried up riverbed wide enough for them to make it through. "Convoy, Alpha 1. Road's out ahead. We're offroading it again. Dried up riverbed should take us where we need to go."

Stacker and Reynolds both honked their horns. They had received her message, and the rest would follow along without issues. At her pointing over his shoulder, Montoya saw the river bed and pulled the wheel to the left, all of the Marines more than happy to be off of the open road.

The Warthog moved slowly through the initial bumpy terrain, before it caught traction on the cracked dirt of the river bed. It was a winding route that offered cover on both sides by hills. In the distance ahead, more smoke could be seen, and the sound of gunfire was picking up, the staccato chatter of rifles fighting against the whine of plasma and the meaty thunk of the Brute's brutal weapons.

Six checked the gun, making sure it was ready to go again. She had just used it, but she wasn't going to leave things to chance when they had wounded. She would be fine, her armor taking the hits, but the others would be more exposed, and if they lost one or even both of their heavy weapons, things would get a lot worse before they got better.

With the convoy trundling along, the sounds of war grew louder, and the Marines began to smell the acrid scent of spent gunpowder, felt the air chill as the ionization in the air went up with every passing moment. The humidity had risen quickly, the storm and plasma discharge contributing more and more to the rapid degradation of the weather.

There was no more chatter, the battle picking up in intensity. "Alpha 1 to all victors, combat conditions ahead. Bravos hang back, Alpha 2 on me. Stacker, you have command."

A chorus of affirmatives met her and the roar of another Warthog's engine hit her ears as Alpha 2 gunned the throttle and caught up quickly, following close behind. The troop carriers of Bravo peeled off to the sides, hiding in some of the trees that remained. Marines were already taking positions as they 'circled the wagons'.

The M41s carried on, out of the river bed and over a small ridge. A UNSC FOB was in place along a cliffside that bordered it in the rear and sides, spreading out and sloping down as the terrain moved away from the structure. Brutes, led by a golden armored War Chieftain, were peppering the base with plasma and spiker fire. The War Chieftain himself had a brute shot, lobbing grenades in with the bladed grenade launcher.

One, on the edge of the line, turned as the sound of engines picked up in his primitive ears. The sharp crack of a sniper rifle sounded, and his head was taken from his shoulders before he could warn the rest.

Six pulled back on the trigger and the M41 went to work, spitting lead all over the Covenant line as the second Warthog turned right and moved across the valley. Yellow tracer fire cut into the aliens, Grunts falling all over themselves trying to flee their certain death, but in the crossfire, they stood little chance. Jackals took to the ground, finding whatever holes or ditches they could and covering their heads with the glowing blue and yellow shields. Brute leaders tried their hardest to get their troopers back into the fight, but with heavy rounds coming in all over the line, they had their work cut out for them. Most adjusted fire to aim at the vehicles, while others continued to fire at the Marines holding the base.

Six shifted her sights, setting them on the Brute War Chieftain. Shields flared as his armor started taking hits, and with a roar, the War Chieftain returned fire with the monstrous grenade launcher in his hands. One of the grenades sailed over Six's shoulder, the other hitting the dirt far to the front of the Hog, but then one made its mark.

An explosion on the left side of the vehicle brought the wheels up into the air, the Warthog steadily tipping onto its side as Montoya fought to keep it on the move. He was fighting a losing battle and Six knew it. "Bail out!"

Even while the Marine dove clear, Six had her eyes set directly on the War Chieftain, still firing his grenade launcher at her. One more round came sailing in as Montoya fell from his seat and rolled through the dirt, finalizing the Warthog's rollover, but Six wasn't finished yet.

Waiting until the last possible second, she pushed off with her powerful legs. The Warthog's momentum had carried it through, and it would slide off to the rear of the Covenant's position, but Six could control where she went, and Marines watched through their sights as a Spartan took flight, seemingly in slow motion. Noble Six hurtled through the air, ripping her knife from its scabbard on her hip, and hit the Brute with all the force she could at a speed that would have left massive dents in steel.

The knife burrowed into the War Chieftain's neck, stumbling him, and Six held onto it as an anchor point, before grabbing the Chieftain's helmet and hoisting herself up to stand on his shoulders. With the weight of a fully armored Spartan on his shoulders, the War Chieftain gave a choked roar and struggled to maintain his balance, fingers firing his brute shot in a vain attempt at bringing her down with him.

With a grunt, Six's leg came up, stomping on the hilt of her knife and sending it deep into the War Chieftain's unarmored neck, until the hilt had disappeared completely. Dropping from his shoulders, the mortally wounded Brute stumbled back and clawed uselessly at the hole in his neck and the broken collar bone that Six's stomp had caused, gurgling as the knife ripped through his insides. His brute shot was already scooped up in Six's hands, and she used it to good effect, pulling the trigger and blowing the Covenant leader to pieces. They had stood still in shock at what they had seen, but now the Brutes had gone berserk, all of them charging the new War Chieftain as she ran the ammo dry. Now, with the Brutes closing, she turned the brute shot around and swung it like a club, the massive curved blade on its rear being used as a sword due to its size.

One Brute was cut deep, even through his armor, and fell off to the side with his chest carved up. Gunfire went up as the Marines inside and the M41 on the Alpha 2's Warthog suppressed those that still cowered, preventing them from aiding the Brutes in taking down Noble Six. Another Brute charged and Six pointed the bayonet at it, spearing the Brute through his midsection. As he went to his knees, Six kicked him in the back, driving the blade out through the rear of his armor. The shotgun still hooked to her back was out in a flash, shoved into a third Brute's face. The shotgun shell was still in the air as the now headless Brute went down, the barrel of the weapon smoking in the choked air.

A roar behind Six and she turned, the pump working, and had almost pointed the weapon at him when another shot cracked out, lancing through the Brute's skull as the Marine sniper once again mentally carved another notch into his rifle. Six stepped out of the way as the corpse kept going, nodding to the Marines in the FOB.

What Grunts and Jackals were left kept hiding, with Six making her way down the line and finishing them off one by one. When the area fell silent once more, Marines began coming out of the FOB with muttering between them, all eyes on the Spartan as the adrenaline slowly drained out of her system. It would be back soon.

The subtle sound of a Phantom's impulse drives could be heard in the distance, growing closer, and Six moved before the rest did. "Get back to cover! Phantom inbound, move!"

The marines high tailed it back, kicking up fantails of dirt as they ran. Montoya, still hidden under the overturned Warthog, was dragged out by his armor, Six holding him in one hand as she put him back on his feet. At Six's prodding, he ran as fast as he could, the Spartan hanging back and slipping into her own cover behind a concrete barrier.

The Phantom swooped in, spewing plasma fire at the FOB from its nose mounted cannon. No infantry dismounted, but the bulbous shape hanging beneath it was a bad sign. A Wraith, one of the Covenant's hover tanks, dropped in with the whine of its hover drives spooling up. Keying her comm, Six gave her orders.

"Alpha 2, fall back to Bravo, you'll get shredded by this Wraith if it gets a bead on you."

" _Yes ma'am, Alpha 2, displacing._ "

With the Warthog hauling itself out of the battle area and the Marines in cover distracting the Wraith, Six slung her shotgun and started running. A Brute sitting in the machine gunner's position above the Wraith's cockpit saw her while she was still on the move, and swung his plasma cannon to bear. Barking an order, the Wraith began to turn on its axis, ready to hit her with the plasma mortar.

She was too quick for that, leaping through the air and kicking off of the smooth, rounded nose of the Wraith. The Brute opened up as he got his target, and heavy plasma fire splashed over her shields. They whined in protest, dropping to empty as she got within arm's reach. With a heave, she brought her leg back and kicked with all her might, hitting the Brute in the chin with enough force to snap his neck back and fling him down into the machine gunner's compartment, limp as a ragdoll.

Beneath her, the hatch to the driver's compartment remained sealed, and she ducked down onto all fours. Clenching her fists together in what would act as an armored hammer, the Spartan started beating the hatch, the metal hull deforming with every blow, until it was ripped asunder by its newly found edges. The Brute inside looked alarmed, but he had already drawn his spiker with Six's attack on his hatch starting.

With spikes glancing off of her rapidly draining shields, Six primed a grenade and dropped it into the cockpit, sans pin. Leaping back and sliding against the loose soil, Six stood back up, the Wraith blowing with the grenade inside. The plasma mortar started leaking plasma over the hull and the ground below, dirt turning into glass as the plasma hit it.

The Phantom had bugged out immediately, and Six didn't detect anything else incoming. She was going to call the convoy to move up, when another voice cut in first.

" _Hoo-whee! Damn, Lieutenant! I could see that from here!_ "

Six smiled inside her helmet, the drawl that Hocus had spoken with sounding against her enhanced ears.

" _The Commander sent me out to get you,_ _we're taking the fight further towards the old Katanga Dockyards. Anti-Air Wraiths in the area are preventing close air support from ferrying troops to the big AA gun they set up. Commander's also hoping to get you on the horn with a clear channel._ "

With the Pelicans hovering into place, the three war birds touched down. With the sight of Pelicans coming in, the vehicles from Six's convoy came roaring into the clearing, one of the Pelicans opening its bay to the wounded as the Marines helped move them over. Hocus' own bird sat down with its bay facing Six. On the side, the Spartan saw something freshly painted, white paint in the blocky UNSC stencil reading "Hocus Pocus".

Shaking her head, Six stepped into the bay, Gunnery Sergeants Stacker and Reynolds taking other Pelicans. Looking back, she saw Montoya and two other Marines jogging for her, all stepping in and getting seated as Six moved into the cockpit, the bay closing up and the three birds lifting off.

Hocus sat in the pilot's seat, and another Marine had taken the co-pilot's seat, features hidden behind the dark visor of the aviator's helmet. "Hocus, what do you have for me?"

"Got the Commander on the line, waiting for you on 110.1, ma'am."

Switching to the frequency, Six heard the static and a pop. "Sierra-B312, reporting."

" _It's good to have you back on a proper footing with us, Lieutenant. Good work getting those Marines out, by the way. ONI Recon One-Eleven has sent in more data about whatever the Covenant is doing. Scans from the_ Ode to Autumn _and_ Forward Unto Dawn _have made it clear that they've been digging up a Forerunner artifact. We have to assume it's the Ark._ " Keyes' voice rang in Six's ears, and the gears started to turn.

"No confirmation then?"

" _Negative. All we have to go off of is the composition of the materials. That giant ship that you came in on touched down on some sort of platform_ _in the center of the structure_ _, sank inside of it about fifty feet._ "

Six frowned, looking out the cockpit windows at the artifact that the Covenant were digging up. The Ark. In the center, the massive three legged ship that Truth had brought from High Charity sat in place, pointing directly up at the center of the spiraling clouds that made up the storm above. "What do you need me to do, Commander?"

" _You'll lead a ground convoy through the Industrial District, link up with cut off Marines, and finish off the_ _mobile_ _anti-air batteries in the area. When those have been cleared, we'll send a larger strike force in on Pelicans and smash the_ _anti-ship plasma battery_ _they set up in this sector. With it out of the way, Admiral Hood's strike group will be able to engage Truth's ship, and hopefully we can put an end to this war._ "

"I'll get it done, ma'am."

" _I know you will. You'll receive more orders as you go._ " Keyes voice cut out and Six thought the channel had died, but the quiet background static never stopped. " _One more thing, Noble Six. Captain Greer put you forward for Lieutenant Commander, given your efforts on Reach during the Fall and the last few weeks of combat._ _Hood himself put his name on the dotted line for it._ _If we make it through this, I'll put you in contact with him. Until then, congratulations, and good luck. Keyes out._ "

The channel cut out completely this time, and Six pressed her chin against the internal controls in her helmet. Noble Team's roster was gone, lost with the change to the Mark VI Mjolnir, and instead only her name remained as an active duty Spartan Operator. Her status had changed, now showing her rank as having been elevated to that of a Lieutenant Commander, the abbreviation reading LCDR nexto to her name. With the roster clearing, but her callsign remaining under Noble, it had changed her designation to Noble One, and she frowned at having left it for so long before manually changing the designation back to Noble Six. There would never be another after Carter.

Closing out of it, she put her hand on the pilot's seat, Hocus only glancing up before she returned her eyes to the terrain. The Pelican had stayed low to the ground, avoiding Covenant targeting systems. The aliens, advanced as they were, still used radar signatures to track the UNSC's aerial assets. The brownish-orange terrain passed by quickly, patches of green giving way every now and again, and the cracked asphalt snaking its way through the area in a dark trail. In the distance, Six could see the anti-air battery firing again, lobbing a massive green ball of plasma into the heavens before disappearing into the dark clouds of the storm.

"That's your target, Lieutenant, er… Lieutenant Commander," Hocus responded, correcting herself as she remembered Six's new rank.

"I'm familiar with the model, Hocus. It'll be easy enough to take down if I can get underneath it. How far out is the rally point from the gun?"

"Three klicks, give or take. Path ain't gonna be direct either, or clear, so it might as well be a hundred. We'll be touching down in just a few minutes."

Frowning, Six nodded and put her gauntlet against the pilot's shoulder in acknowledgment, before she disappeared back into the blood tray where Montoya and the other Marines sat. They looked up at her, giving a nod of greeting, and she returned it. The flooring of the Pelican swayed beneath her as she grabbed one of the handholds near the rear and gazed out at the terrain passing by. The two Pelicans following close behind were keeping a tight formation, drifting ever so slightly in Hocus Pocus' slipstream.

The trip didn't last much longer, the flight of Pelicans touching down on cracked asphalt where two troop carrier Warthogs and an M41 sat idling, waiting for their new passengers. The bay door opened and Six stepped back out into the sunlight. Stacker and Reynolds didn't come out, but Montoya and the others in her own bird followed suit. Wounded remained inside for medivac, and the stubby UNSC craft lifted back off into the setting sun.

A two toned beep sounded in her ears, the wide band command channel registering a high level actor entering it. " _UNSC Forces in and around Voi, this is Admiral Hood. Prepare for the final push. Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, all of you, this is it. The Prophet of Truth has spent the last two weeks digging_ _his own_ _grave, and this war will end with him and all of his followers buried in it. Today, this war will be brought to an end and we will begin to rebuild, thanks to the efforts of all of you and those that came before. We will not go quietly into that good night._ "

Silence flooded the channel, save for the dim white noise of static. Six began to walk for the M41, ready to swing up to the gun, when she remembered something that Carter had once said during the Fall. Pulling the charging handle back on her battle rifle with a loud crack, all of the Marines sitting in their Warthogs and standing around her letting their eyes land on the battered blue armor, taking in the silhouette that would go down in Human history as one that had a powerful presence on the final battlefields of the Human-Covenant War.

"This is Sierra-B312. You've got a Spartan on the ground, Sir. We'll break that gun in half."

Marines began to cheer, a roar going up loud enough that Six could hear other scattered pockets and their own voices ringing through the hills and off of the buildings deeper into the industrial zone and docks.

Onboard a battered but airborne _Forward Unto Dawn_ , Admiral Hood muted the channel, chuckling, and he let the cries echo for a few moments before his voice sounded again. " _Give 'em hell, Noble Six. Admiral Hood, out._ "

Climbing up onto the gun and hanging onto the firing studs for the M41, Six could feel the air nearly humming with energy as the Marines around her gained the massive morale boost a Spartan deployment brought.

Unbeknownst to Six, a camera drone operated by combat photographers near the Marine HQ several miles to the west had recorded every moment of it. Years later, with ONI censors slackening on the war and Spartan information being unclassified, that moment would be immortalized in the eyes of the public, spreading like wildfire across the internet. Some of the final words of the war had been uttered, and they would be some of the most famous as well.

Zooming in and taking several pictures of the only Spartan on the ground during the fighting at Voi, the camera drone's controller could barely contain his excitement at the shots he had just taken, rivaling that of US Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima, of the first picture of an Earthrise taken by William Anders, and even those pictures taken by a crippled and fleeing UNSC destroyer as it ran from the first Covenant ships seen by the public eye.

The camera drone skittered off quickly, transmitting the files as it went, and returning to the deployment zone to offload higher resolution copies from its internal drives.

Spartan-B312, heading the opposite direction, had just cemented her place in history, her existence never to be forgotten by Humanity. Once upon a time, her story had ended with nothing but a burned and cracked helmet buried in the dirt, a tombstone that was all too fitting for a woman that died alone on a dead world. Now, her helmet remained firmly on her head, protecting her from all that may come out of the screaming dark that would encompass the next several days of her life, until the screeching halt of the end put a period to more than just the war.


	4. Dusk

Warthogs rolled through an abandoned tunnel, concrete scattered among the black asphalt in hunks and pieces that the drivers avoided. Utility vehicles and trailers full of multiple types of goods sat lifeless where their owners had either left them behind or had died at the wheel. Spikes from Brute weapons could be seen buried in windshields and hulls alike, with melted sections where plasma had splashed and weakened the material.

Six frowned, her fingers rubbing up and down the triggers to the M41 in sync as she stroked her nerves, waiting for the chittering of an alien or the red to light up her motion tracker. Looking down at the dashboard of the Warthog, she saw that Private Montoya had taken up the position of driver for her once more. Given his performance during the exodus from Crow's Nest, she was more than willing to let him continue. He couldn't be as bad as Kat had been.

At the thought of the woman, her frown deepened and she shook her head to clear it away. The tunnel cleared out, revealing an open plaza and parking lot filled with more abandoned vehicles and the gate that led forward was locked down tight. Keying her mic, she scanned the rooftops and the shadows. "Watch for movement and spread the vehicles out when you come out of the tunnel. I'll head inside first and get the gate open."

Behind her, the driver of one of the troop transports, a Sergeant Natalie Green responded. " _I'll send a man up to take your place on the gun, we've got your back ma'am._ "

With a glance back, Six saw a Marine leap from the troop transport immediately behind her, running up to take her place. When he arrived, she grabbed his hand and pulled him up, before jumping off herself and pulling her shotgun from its position on her back.

Checking the ammo counter on her HUD, it read a reassuring full, and she nodded to herself. The controls for the door were right next to it, shining the universal locked color of a bright red. Moving up, the Warthog's engine purred as Montoya walked it forward behind her. Slapping it, the gate shuddered and creaked open, rolling up into the heavy metal wall that held it in place.

The Spartan moved around the corner and into the low light, a smoldering Warthog surrounded by Grunt corpses hidden in the corner where Marines had made their final stand. A few Brutes here and there had been riddled with holes, and despite the deaths of the men, she nodded to herself. They had done well, had gone down like Marines did in the face of impossible odds.

The servos of the M41 whined quietly as the Marine at the controls continued scanning the upper levels. Six made to go up the stairs. Red blips appeared at the far reaches of her motion tracker and she held her hand up, clicking her mic to get the Marine's attention.

The helmeted head snapped to her and watched the lone finger she held up, pointing to the upper level in the general direction. The finger became a closed fist, and she rocked it back and forth at the wrist. _Hold until engaged_

The Marine's mouth opened as he mouthed the words to himself, before giving a thumbs up and holding onto the gun. He would hold fire until he was fired upon. Montoya had seen it as well, cutting the Warthog's engine to prevent being heard. Given Brute's hearing abilities, even their sense of smell, they had probably already been found out, but he wouldn't risk giving the Commander's position away before she was ready if he could help it.

Six, satisfied, began to creep up the stairs. Her armor, together with her own weight, meant that the stairs were straining underneath half a ton of UNSC stamped death. Her shotgun was held up against her shoulder, and she continued to move up nearly sideways. Every movement was precise and calculated as Six fell back into her element.

The door that had been at the top of the stairs had been ripped asunder and thrown aside, laying in a crumpled heap in the hall that led over the road through the structure and into the interior of the dockyards. The control station for the interior gate was ahead, and the Covenant had taken up position inside for a reason. They would be trying to slow her down, but she wouldn't allow it.

The shotgun came down to her hip as she neared the corner, not wanting to poke the barrel out before she was ready, and she slid around as if she was on hinges, the crosshair in her visor following the barrel's trajectory.

A Brute Chieftain, two Captains, and several Grunts were milling about the area, the Chieftain growling at the Grunts as they patrolled, his Captains messing with some of the controls in the center in an attempt at keeping the area locked down.

Six took her hand from the pump on the shotgun, reaching slowly for the two grenades that hung on her belt and pulling them off with a soft click. The Chieftain flinched, his growling stopping as he turned to see the Spartan with two grenades in hand, golden visor not showing shock that she had been found out.

Acting on muscle memory, she sidearmed the grenades, pins on her fingers like militarized rings as the fuses in the grenades activated. One slammed into the Chieftain's chest, and he roared as it bounced away. The other bounced off of the control station and rolled underneath, one of the Captains stumbling as he tried to see what it was. Then everything went up.

The grenade under the control station blew, tearing the legs off of one Captain and dropping the shields of another. The second was kicked away by the Chieftain, right back at Six, and she dove into the hallway she had come through before it exploded. Shrapnel went everywhere, pinging loudly as it ricocheted through the hall and off of her armor. Her shields fell to half and she was up before the pinging had stopped.

A waist high slit in the hall overlooking the entrance, where the Warthog still sat quietly, Six vaulted through it and fell the 15 feet to the ground below, tucking into a roll and running the opposite direction of the Hog. The Chieftain appeared where she had come down and Montoya and the other Marine acted, the engine roaring to life as the gun opened up, spitting tracers into the thin metal of the hallway. The Chieftain's shields winked on brightly, failing under the heavy barrage, and he was torn apart as more and more holes were put in the sides of the construction. A Captain stepped out as well as his Chieftain fell, shields flaring before he ducked back.

Six was already moving up the opposite stairs, coming face to face with a fleeing Grunt. Her fist snaked out like a lunging cobra, caving the diminutive alien's face in before she advanced into the control room. The Brute missing its legs was still alive, a spiker in hand. A single pull of the shotgun's trigger put an end to the Brute's suffering and Six racked the slide to provide another shell. The second Captain had pulled back, meeting Six with a roar. Weakened shields went down as the shotgun barked again, and a third shell was put into the Brute's chest. Now, all that was left was the half dozen Grunts that had scattered.

They were a nonissue, with the sound of the M41's roar drowning out their screams, silence falling over the area once more. Cutting her mic, she spoke again. "Transports, move in. I'll open the second door. Briefing says the first lake bed and the Wraiths are just on the other side of it. If you have heavy ordinance, bring it up. Out."

More engines sounded outside, dropping to a purr as she went to hit the next switch. The Warthog, helmed by Mendoza, pulled up next to her. "You want a ride, ma'am?"

Six shook her head. "I'll continue on foot and clear out whatever I can while making my way to the Wraiths. Distract them, take them out if you can, but don't stop moving. They get a bead on you and you're done."

Slapping the door controls, it opened up and the Warthog was out in a flash, engine roaring as it took flight from the concrete ridge and landed in the lake bed. Off to the side, the area excavated by the Covenant ships left a steep drop to the artifact below, something she knew she wouldn't survive if she went over. The M41 opened up, chattering loudly as the shots pinged off of the heavy frontal armor on the Wraiths.

The troop transports came out next, most of the Marines dismounted save for a pair in each that had held onto rocket launchers and their ammunition. The gasp of a rocket firing and smoke filling the entryway sounded as one of the Marines opened fire, a second rocket following close behind. Six looked back at the rest of the Marines that remained, an explosion sounding as battle started up again. "Move quick, but don't get caught out. Cover me and I'll do the heavy lifting."

One of the Marines moved up to the other side of the door, peeking around the corner and taking single shots at the Grunts on the ridge. "Better you than me, ma'am. Lead the way."

Six didn't respond, moving past him and drawing one of the pistols she had strapped to her thigh armor. It would do the job well enough, lacking an actual rifle. She sighted in on Grunts, firing and dropping them with expert marksmanship that had been perfected over the years.

The slide racked back, empty, and she slid another magazine home before she continued to deal out death in generous amounts. A Brute started to charge her, but her shotgun wasn't quick enough on the draw. Instead, several Marine rifles opened up with a vicious song, ripping into the Brute and dropping him to the concrete without a sound. Six kept moving, confident the Marines had her back.

The rattle of the M41 bounced off of the dockyard walls and the parched Earth, water having been stolen away by the heat of the glassing beams. Another rocket launched and hit a Wraith dead on in the plasma mortar, blowing it to pieces without a second thought.

Her comm crackled, the radio waves being distorted by the heavy ionization in the air, and Six ducked into cover as more Brutes defending one of the anti-air Wraiths started to hurl fire her way.

" _Kilo 23, this is_ Forward Unto Dawn, _I need a sitrep, Commander._ " Lord Hood's voice faded in and out, overpowered by the static.

" _Atmospheric disturbances increasing over the artifact, Admiral. Hurricane force winds picked up by one of our probes. Lasted all of ten seconds in the center of the storm before we lost it._ "

A silent curse, one Six didn't catch. " _And Sierra 312?_ "

" _Moving as fast as she can, sir. I know she'll get it done."_

The chatter kept going but Six tuned it out, frowning as she popped around the barrier she had called her own. Her finger pulled the trigger as fast as it could, the heavy slug rounds leaving the pistol and making tight groupings on one of the Brutes fast enough to unbalance it from the force of the rounds. Its armor popped off and she put a final round into its head. More fire from the Marines behind her pushed its allies into their own cover and Six advanced, shotgun ready.

Her heavy boots thudded against the concrete, alerting the aliens to her presence. One whipped out of cover, only to catch a shotgun shell to the face at close range. The other, still in cover with his weapon ready, opened fire on her. Her shields fell rapidly, and she put another shotgun shell into the Brute, but her shields collapsed as she pulled the trigger. One final spike left the barrel of the spiker and glanced off of her heavy shoulder pauldrons.

Inside, Six frowned. She was getting careless and risky. She needed to rein in her impulse to get in the enemy's face, shotgun or not.

The Marines moving up behind her saw the heavy yellow arcs crossing over her armor, and passed by to cover her while her shields recharged. With support, she was able to take a breather, green eyes watching her motion tracker until the shield bar filled completely.

Taking the lead again, the Spartan watched as the remaining anti-air Wraith fired, sending a green barrage of fire up at a UNSC Hornet that had gotten caught out and overextended. The plasma hit it dead on, ripping it to pieces even as another rocket from the Warthogs impacted its frontal armor, and then another immediately after, finishing it off.

"Move up!" She called out her orders, long legs carrying her forward as the marines scurried along with her. The Warthog with the M41 on it jumped over a sloped piece of concrete buried in the ground, landing and sliding into a drift as it moved for the door. Montoya had gotten daring.

Picking up the pace, she hit the switch to the door, opening up into another area filled with alien infantry that the trooper on the M41 made short work of. Several Marines popped their heads out of an upper level, relieved that not only had someone saved their bacon, but a Spartan had come for them. She was rapidly being seen by troops on the ground as _the_ Spartan. With the Chief no longer appearing in battles in the iconic olive armor worn by the Spartan IIs, the sight of Morgan in her sky blue, mismatched armor parts and a more utilitarian look had become the angel the Marines prayed for.

One of them, operating a console on the overlook they had taken cover in, opened the gate under them for the relief forces to pass. It was wide enough for the Warthogs to enter as well, one after the other. "Thought our goose was cooked, Commander. Thanks for the save."

Six looked up at him, giving a thumbs up signal as she walked the Warthogs forward, keeping them at a slow pace through the narrow halls. She slipped off to the side, Montoya dutifully feathering the throttle to keep her covered with the M41 on the back. Her pistol was back in hand again, the crosshair rock steady in practiced hands. "Montoya, light it up." The Marine fumbled with the dash for a moment, before the bright foglights on the front of the Hog lit up, casting the hall in bright white. At the other end, a pair of Ghosts sat unused, a troop of Jackals and Grunts caught out by the Warthog's lamps.

They had been advancing on the Marines rear, hoping to sandwich them against the now dead anti-air unit. The big gun opened up, spewing shells as it lit the area up with fire. Several of the Grunts were shredded outright, one of the Jackals managing to dive out of the way in the nick of time. He hid there as his allies were slaughtered, and Six moved up slowly. The Warthog ceased fire, but the gunner watched, waiting for their target to come back into the open.

A green glow filled the corner, and Six frowned. Her hand went out to have the Warthog stop, but she was too slow. A bright ball of plasma came shooting out of the dark corner, moving too fast for Montoya to react. The ball hit the Warthog dead center, melting the hood and part of the towing assembly. Worst of all, an overcharged plasma pistol acted as an EMP, and completely shorted out the Warthog's internals. Montoya cursed as he lost power, frantically trying to bring it back into working order.

A blue ball lit up, but Six's pistol was on target as the Jackal primed a grenade. Several slugs went down range, plowing into the Jackal. Four hits to the chest finished it off, and it fell to the ground, grenade clutched in its avian like claws. Then the grenade blew, casting a blue light across the tunnel for a moment before it died out. With the Warthog down, the tunnel was once more cast in darkness.

She moved into cover, watching for any more ambushes as her VISR covered the world in a sickly green filter, until the Warthog purred back to life again and lit the area up. "Got it!" Montoya called out to Six, and she moved forward again, slow and steady.

No more Covies were there to meet them, and Six sighed to herself as she opened another door into a second dried lake bed. A massive freighter sat broken in half, hanging partially over into the crevice the artifact sat in.

Several more anti-air Wraiths sat ready in the area, blasting into the sky as their radar analogues caught sight of UNSC air assets. Six ushered the Warthog forward onto the support ramp, leading down to the parched Earth, but one of the Wraiths went up in flames, a wispy trail of smoke coming from off to the left.

Marine forces had broken through, several clutching rocket launchers as another fired, and then a second. The twin rockets snaked through the air at high speed, impacting the remaining Wraith and blowing it to pieces.

Once again gesturing it forward, Six latched onto the side and slid into the passenger seat of the Warthog. "Go! Get us over there!"

The Warthog shot off, the remaining Marines running along the outskirts of the newly made canyon to stay level with the other forces. None of them wanted to be caught out down there in case more vehicles were dropped in.

Six held tight to her battle rifle, the Warthog bouncing over hills and bumps with as much grace as it could. It slid to a stop next to the Marine position, the gunner swiveling and searching the skies or other entrances for more targets.

The Spartan leaped from the seat as the vehicle slid into position. One of the nearest Marines gaped as she came out of the dust cloud the Warthog had kicked up, looking like a fish out of water in front of an angry god.

"Who's your commander?"

The Marine recovered his wits sooner than some would. "C-captain Rhodes, Ma'am. I can take you to him."

"Lead the way, Marine," she answered, and she felt a hint of a smile come to her face as the Marine nearly tripped over himself trying to get away, leading her back into the structure the Marines had come from. He was a replacement. Someone fresh from basic, possibly not even finished before Earth was thrown into the frying pan. Marine regulars, like Montoya and Green, had seen the worst of the war at this point. This poor soul didn't look a day over 18, and he lacked the fortune – or misfortune – to have gone through training as she had.

Her musing went up in smoke, and her smile followed as her boots came to a halt in front of a Marine bearing the double bars of a Captain. He looked up from a sea of tacpads, and she saw the gears working in his head before he spoke.

"Commander, Ma'am. Didn't think we'd run into you out here. Command said you'd be tearing around nearby but didn't give a vector." He straightened to his full height, forgoing a salute but straightening up a little more than he normally would.

Six merely shrugged. "I get around, Captain. You actually beat me to my objective by a few seconds."

The Captain, Rhodes, chuckled. In the low light of the building, having long lost power, Six was finally seeing some of his features. A scar trailed from his chin down until it disappeared into his body armor and fatigues. It was raised and still faintly pink. It had to chafe like hell, but she figured he had bigger things on his mind. "That'll make a fine inscription on my tomb stone, Commander."

Six let her smile grow wider, but it remained hidden from him, much like everyone else, behind the cold visor she wore. "Nothing better, Captain. What's your strength and mission?"

He chewed at his lip, lifting one of the tacpads into his hands and glancing over it. "We've been fighting since before Crow's Nest fell, half strength right now, and even then we're walking wounded. Nearly everybody has taken some hit or another, one of my boys even rolled his damned ankle just outside this door."

"Mission objective was to support Marine forces moving to reduce SPAAA presence, and we got the job done. Sergeant Major Johnson and Commander Keyes have been coordinating things from afar, just got told they're sending in Pelicans to cycle us out and get ready for-"

He was cut off as the radio in his helmet, as well as Six's, went up in static. Johnson's strong tones came through, warning in his voice. " _Karma Actual,_ _Noble_ _Six, you've got something inbound. Something big. Dig in tight. Pelicans are waving off, they can't get closer._ "

Rhodes sounded confused, angry. "What the hell is keeping them away? We got rid of the Wraiths! My men are barely able to move, much less fight through another position!"

Six responded before Johnson could, her voice hard like iron. "A Scarab is inbound, isn't it?"

" _Mmhm, one of those big bastards meant solely for fighting, the kind we normally see on the field. It's showing up on ground radar from the_ Dawn _. It'll be right on top of you in a few more minutes._ "

"Copy, we'll handle it."

"Wha- Sergeant Major! We aren't gonna be able to fight a Scarab! We-"

Johnson's voice sounded from the other end, amusement in his tone despite the situation. " _Stick with the Commander. She'll know what to do._ " The static grew again before cutting out entirely.

Rhodes, growing more and more frustrated, looked at the Spartan. "You have a plan then, Commander?"

Six looked back over her shoulder at him, nodding. "I'll handle it. Have your men get in cover and hold tight with those rockets, hide from the lake bed, and wait for my signal. We'll squash this bug."

She began walking away, Rhodes staring at her retreating back for a moment before issuing orders to those units he still had capable of fighting. Her heavy boots stomped out of the impromptu command center. Already, she could hear the sound of the Scarab's monstrous footfalls, the whine of its legs moving and propelling it on, and every so often, the anti-air plasma battery on its aft end lighting up.

Marines tucked into cover and the Warthog was ushered into hiding beneath the broken remains of a pier, barely able to fit inside. Captain Rhodes had come out of his command center, following the seemingly confident Spartan that had more of a plan than he did. She stopped just short of the marine line, watching up and down it as Marines loaded fresh rocket tubes into their launchers and did what they could for whatever wounds they had.

"Commander, all due respect-" Rhodes was cut off as the helmet twisted to look back at him, and though he couldn't see the emerald eyes behind it, his own reflection in the gold visor sent a chill down his spine. Swallowing, he tried again. "With all due respect, ma'am, we don't have the equipment to take on a Scarab. We need to pull out or what's left of my men will be killed in the fight."

Six turned fully to face him, and though the Captain was a tall man, the Spartan dwarfed him, and he understood what it was like to stand in the shadow of war itself. He would have sworn the air had dropped a few degrees, but the temperature gauge on his tacpad didn't budge. "If we pull out now, that gun stays up. If that gun stays up, we lose our only shot at taking down Truth and the rest of the Covenant. Watch my back, and I'll make sure yours doesn't get burned off."

Six turned away from him, and satisfied with the lines, began running back towards where she had come from with the rest of her small force, ducking back into the darkness that filled the tunnel they used for a path.

Rhodes, left to tend to his men, swore violently enough for several of the Marines to look over at him. He was beginning to hear the faintest sounds that indicated the Scarab baring down on their position, and with his final orders given, he took the time he could to make peace with God.

Marines ducking into cover behind barricades, broken concrete pillars, even a shattered Warthog, did likewise. Some clutched their weapons tightly, believing that they'd be able to do at least something to stave off sudden death. Others were exhausted to the point that they merely sat with backs against their cover, deciding that they'd end up dying anyway and there was no use fretting over it. Their rest would come soon enough. 28 years was a long time, and entire families had disappeared in the hellfire that came from Covenant battlegroups over the years. Some were all that was left of their family, and even more had lost everything, but all of them knew that the end was near. Either the war would end, or they would, and Humanity had long grown accustomed to that train of thought. There was nowhere else to run.

With the ground shaking beneath boots filled with defenders confident and tired alike, the Scarab reared its ugly head over the building that Rhodes had made his own, one of its massive legs punching through and filling the building with dust and debris. The main gun in the Scarab's head shined an angry green in the light of the setting sun, and Brutes covered in the blue power armor of Captains strode atop its back, manning plasma turrets and clutching heavy weapons, even the sight of a lone Chieftain standing out just below the aft mounted anti-air battery. Purple armor glistened as the light hit it, and it passed over the Marine position as if they weren't there.

Some Marines tucked even further into cover, flattening themselves against the dirty concrete in hopes that the Brutes could only see motion, and if they were still enough, things would be okay.

The Scarab pressed out past them, into the open area that the Wraith's still sat smoking in, and stopped. It looked around, ready to end the lot of them, and finally a Brute on its back saw what they had missed. The ape like alien roared, the Scarab drowning it out, and a meaty hand pointed at the Marines. The Scarab came about, the main gun glowing brighter as it powered up, even mid-turn.

Rhodes cursed, and almost keyed his mic to order a retreat, when he heard it.

" _This is Noble Six, Karma Actual, fire all tubes at the Scarab's knee joints and displace out of the gun's angle._ "

Rhodes, hearing the order, gave it. "All rockets, fire, fire everything!"

Flames and smoke coated the area the instant after he gave the order, scorch marks covering the gray concrete as backblast from the rockets hit it, and then again as the second tubes blew. Two dozen rockets lanced out and impacted against the super heavy armor, most striking harmlessly against it, but some met their mark. Joint armor, thinner and more spread out, was blasted apart as the rockets hit home, and one of the joints was collapsed.

The anti-air battery on the aft end of the Scarab began to return fire, as did some of the Brutes on the defensive plasma turrets. Marines scattered like cockroaches and Rhodes was nearly taken out himself by a near miss. He felt the heat wash over him and his skin blistered along his left arm, but he grit his teeth and ran. Another Marine was hit directly by the massive red blast, and simply ceased to exist, not even the outline of his boots left in the melting concrete.

The Scarab went down, a loud alarm blaring repeatedly as it began to take emergency measures and regain its footing. Rhodes spared a glance to his left as another plasma blast missed him, and he saw it.

A single Ghost rocketed out of the tunnel network, a blue clad figure riding it for all it had. The Ghost jinked to the left and hit one of the concrete ramps that had been nothing more than a broken piece of the docks. The purple vehicle took to the air, despite the heavy Spartan riding it, and was discarded at the apex of the leap. The Spartan launched herself from the saddle and came into a roll on the Scarab's back, Brutes moving from the plasma turrets already to deal with her as Rhodes made it to more solid cover.

On the Scarab, things were heating up, and not only because of the anti-air battery's continued fire. A Brute Captain, wielding a plasma rifle, was the first to fall to the point blank fire of a shotgun blast as Noble Six came up from a roll. The weapon had been jammed into his midsection, and his wind was taken before his life was.

Six saw the rest of the Brutes, almost five of them, had moved to engage, with the Chieftain himself coming down as well. Six frowned, pursing her lips, and rather than move away, charged straight at the Brutes that had been guarding the Scarab.

They didn't falter either, and all moved to fire at her. Plasma splashed against her shields and alarms wailed in her ears as she fired again, one Brute taking the buckshot in its face. Its head snapped back as its shields broke, and it went limp before sliding off to the dusty ground below. Another took a second shot with similar results. Six's shields, however, had met their match.

Collapsing with a repeating tone that grated on her ears, two Brutes still stood in defiance of the unwanted visitor. Six felt another hit impact her right chest plate, where the shot on Delta Halo had melted the armor down. More alarms broke out and she felt the heat against her chest even through the heavy armor, but it hadn't completely compromised it yet. She could still fight.

Pumping the shotgun again, she aimed from the hip, but before she fired, a crack went through the air and the Brute went down with a new hole in its head to breathe through. Its compatriot saw the movement out of the corner of its eye, and glanced over to see what had happened, but the gears had only just started to turn when he suffered the same fate.

Six, with a glance back at the Marine position, could see where a trail of vapor through the air led back to a Marine with a sniper rifle, and she nodded in thanks, only for another round to come her way. It passed just over her left shoulder, and she heard a pained roar.

A curse. Her situational awareness had lapsed, even with her motion tracker. Behind her, the Brute Chieftain roared with a hole in its chest, and the wheeze that went through the air indicated it had lost a lung to the high velocity armor piercing round fired by the sniper rifle. It charged at Six, and she realized with a moment of clarity that her motion tracker didn't register it. No dots, not even her own, were on it anymore.

She ducked under the large swing and rolled across the Scarab's hull, coming up as it turned to face her again, and then keeled over, dead. Another crack hit her ears and she realized that the Marine sniper had finished the Brute off with his final round. Wounded or not, one of them was still a sharpshooter with great skill.

She didn't make the same mistake as before, moving quickly for the aft end where the anti-air battery was still blasting away at the Marines. She dropped down to the rear, where more heavy armor covered an open bay like area. Inside, hidden away behind the armor, was the massive orange core that powered the Scarab, composed of the same worms that made up Hunters. Pulling a grenade from her belt, she pulled the pin and held the cap on it, before shoving it into the worms with all her strength. Strong fingers left the grenade in a massive hole that had been punched through, and Six made tracks as she leapt from the back of the Scarab, rising even now as it righted itself.

The gun in the front opened up wide, venting excess plasma as it prepared to fire, and then the grenade blew. A louder warning alarm than before went up, bouncing off of buildings and rock faces alike, and Six ran for the Marines. Long legs and arms pumped furiously as she sprinted for the building, making motions even now back towards them as she ran up the concrete ramp and onto the level where the Marines were scrambling for heavy cover.

She had just barely gotten flat against the ground when she heard the explosion, the shockwave form the Scarab's demise passing over her like a massive hand had just attempted to swat her like a bug. Pieces of purple armor and globs of plasma came down from the sky, most of the survivors trying to not get smashed by whatever was in the air.

Debris was still scattered high in the sky, reaching the apex of their trajectories when Six stood back up, a somewhat incredulous looking Captain Rhodes coming towards her and nursing his left arm.

"You Spartans all like making flashy entrances?" He asked, sliding out of his body armor and pulling his fatigue jacket off to get to the blistered skin beneath.

"Only when we have spectators," she replied, shrugging. Spartans tried to move quickly, without trying to put unnecessary flare into their fights, but it seemed like Six was always in a position to show off. Admittedly, she liked the attention, she had come to realize.

Rhodes snorted, shaking his head as he tore open a package he had pulled from one of his body armor pouches, slathering an amber colored ooze along the blisters that coated his arm. It hardened quickly, cooling his skin and soothing the injury before he shrugged back into his gear. "You did some good work out there, but next time, give me an idea of what you'll be trying? That could have gone wrong on so many levels."

Six shrugged. "Wasn't enough time, and you would have said no."

He started to open his mouth, a protest making its way up his throat, but before the words came out, he knew she was right, and his jaw clicked shut again.

The Spartan tilted her helmet, as if saying 'I told you so', and looked back down the line. "One of your men, a sniper, did half the job for me. Kept me from getting overwhelmed when I overextended."

Rhodes followed her gaze, spotting the Marine in question. "Jones is one of our best. Eyes like a hawk and an arm long enough to touch whatever the hell he wants with that rifle."

Their conversation was cut short, more static sounding in her ear as the comms opened up again. Commander Keyes spoke through it, sounding relieved. " _Saw that from here, Six. Nice work down there. I'm sending in a few Pelicans with fresh troopers to cycle out Karma. Keep moving into the next area and it'll be a straight shot to the AA gun. Keyes out._ "

Six pursed her lips. The Pelicans would be here soon enough, and she wasn't pushing along on her own just yet. Sliding into the factory area that had been turned to rubble by the heavy stomping of the Scarab, she hunkered down and removed her helmet, dust and smoke filling her nostrils as the filters in her helmet left her. She stole into one of her waist pouches, an olive colored package coming from it.

The wrapper was discarded and thrown into the darkness, leaving a chalky looking granola bar that was dense with calories and the nutrients a warfighter needed. As she brought it to her teeth, it snapped off with little force, and found itself being ground up by her teeth in short order. She grimaced at the feeling of the preservative residue sticking to her teeth, and the taste was so bland as to be nonexistent, but it was what she needed. Without proper food, she'd slowly lose fighting strength, and a Spartan could never afford that, but with the way things were going…

She broke her mind away from it, forcing herself through the rest of the bar before pulling a small tube that led into the collar armor and disappeared behind her neck into her mouth. Water, kept cold by the suit's climate control system, was sucked through the tube. It had been recycled more than once at this point, and it tasted stale and left another grimace, but the fact that it was cold was enough for her.

She heard the AA gun firing again in the distance, a rhythmic thump that sounded every few seconds, mingled with the chatter of Human weaponry and the whine of plasma weapons. Her mind, slowing down as her body rested, was drawn once again to what had happened. She frowned, her thoughts clouding with the darkness that surrounded all of Humanity these days.

Dust clung to her pale skin, settling on the raised ridges of a scar on her left cheek, long ago turned white. She ignored it. Prolonged deployments, being treated as more of a gun than a Human, being used to kill your own kind when a genocidal alien menace was burning worlds and billions of people at a time, it all added up to a cocktail of confusion. She didn't understand her emotions, her mental state. She didn't remember what it felt like to have _fun_ , to be _happy_. She had all but forgotten anything that wasn't exhaustion and what she could only describe as being empty. She remembered a pit of warmth in her gut when she saw Kat on Reach, and then a quickly freezing lump that settled in its place as Noble went dark, and Reach with it.

A woman, beautiful by today's standards, had been ruined by war, by fate, by the urge for revenge. Skin that would have been tanned and black hair that had been made to shine in the sunlight had long ago been ignored, gone pale and flat as they were ignored by necessity or simply irrelevant. Emerald eyes that, in another life, would have twinkled with mirth, surrounded by laugh lines at the corners, were as sharp as steel, but the fire in them had been left a faint ember, worn down by time and loss. Long, toned arms and legs had been made over muscled by the augmentations, marred by scars from the week of surgeries and invasive procedures rather than smooth and lithe. Joints meant to last a life time would be ground down by the constant movement, the heavy weights, the urge to keep moving. By the time she was 40, her joints would be protesting, broken down and long past their prime.

Noble Six let her head rest back against the wall she had hunkered up against, and closed her eyes, if only for a moment. She wanted to sit there and let the war go on without her. She had lived long enough, done enough, why couldn't her fight be over? Hadn't she sacrificed enough of her life, her self, her very being?

With eyes cracking open once again, she knew the answer already. If she didn't carry on, then how could anybody else? Spartans were the best of the best. They would have been scientists, artists, doctors, leaders. With the war, those that were the bright spark of Humanity's core had become child soldiers, damaged and broken by the loss of their childhoods and their innocence. A generation lost to history in every aspect but war. What would happen when the Covenant was gone? Where was the use for damaged super soldiers that knew nothing but war? Would they be cast away, deep into the dark corners of society? A Spartan without a war was near useless.

Six shook her head, grunting as she felt a headache coming on. Outside, she could hear the whine of engines spooling down as Pelicans lowered themselves into courtyards. Shouts of Marines urging their brethren along reached her ears, and with a final sigh, Noble Six slipped her helmet back on, and sealed herself away from those thoughts.

Noble Six, her rest cut short, went back to war.


	5. Nightfall

" _I can still remember it, like it was yesterday. That warped… inhuman sound, the stomps that sounded like the world was coming down around me, the howling rain, and then…" **Recording notes shuddering sob, continues six seconds later.** "Then she was there."_

 _-_ Ryan Coranado, former Voi Metalworks technician recounting Battle of Voi.

Museum of Sacrifice, December 21, 2559

* * *

Steel and synthetic filters blocked the dust that kicked up as Pelicans touched down, the threat of getting their wings clipped by boiling plasma gone for the moment. Marines hobbled either on their own or on the arms of their comrades, others were carried in on stretchers. Some never left the field of battle, even if their body did. A final resting place, overlooking the destabilizing storm sector that covered the artifact. Fitting that some would find their long fight ended where Humanity's cradle had been.

Sealed inside of heavy armor and once again a statue made of war and loss, Morgan watched still more Marines trotting off of other Pelicans, looking fitter and fresher than those that had been attached to Karma Company. A grizzled Captain, with dark skin and steel colored eyes, belted out an order to the men he had led here, before those eyes settled on Six.

Her shotgun was held loosely in her fingers, the tube being filled one by one as shells from an ammunition pouch on her hip were slid home with only the movements of her arm going back and forth showing she was even awake in the armor.

The Captain made his way towards her, slipping through others before boots met the concrete and he began to climb up, looking up from the lip of the concrete halfway through his rise to see the blue gauntlet, caked in dust, extended to him. He latched onto it and Six pulled him up as if he weighed nothing. He was not a small man, and with a full combat load he was pushing 230 easy.

The gold visor that stared back at him was impassive, and the voice that came through was feminine, surprising him slightly. "Captain, you're moving on the battery, I take it?"

A green square covered his left eye, a small HUD seen on it from where Morgan stood. He was reading her IFF now, and she was reading his as it popped up on her own visor. "Yes, ma'am. We've been ordered to support you in whatever way we can." He held out his hand, and Six took it as he went on. "Captain Sean Roberts."

Six shook it, her hand pulling back from his to cradle the shotgun. "Lieutenant Commander Spartan-312. Callsign is Noble Six."

The Captain's features drew tight against his face, his dark skin making him seem as if he had been chiseled from an oak tree rather than born. "Six? There are more of you around here?"

A dry chuckle, and Roberts felt a chill run down his spine. "If only, Captain. No, I'm the only Spartan on the ground in the area as far as I know. But don't worry, I'll keep you safe." Steely gray eyes narrowed slightly, barely noticeable, but Six caught it. "Are your men up for the task?"

Roberts looked back over his shoulder, Six's sharp green eyes following him as he looked at the men that had been brought with him. Squad leaders were making final checks, and the three lieutenants leading his unit were double checking even those. "Yes, ma'am. We're fresh and ready to do whatever you need us for. We were in Cairo for down time, just got called in last night and came straight to the fight."

Six's visor snapped back to him, boring holes in the back of his head. "Strength? Replacements?"

Roberts turned back. "Full strength, all veterans with two tours. Some were even on Reach before she fell."

Six bristled at the mention of the bastion falling, before she hummed in acceptance. They would do well then. "Understood. Get your men ready. We move in five."

The Captain nodded and set off back to his men, feeling Six's eyes on his back the whole way. Something about her was off, and he couldn't quite place it, but it made his skin crawl.

The Spartan watched him go. Glancing at the spot on the bottom left of her HUD, where a functionless motion tracker sat, she frowned. Running suit diagnostics did nothing for her, and although she could replace the part with little effort, she didn't have any way to replace it. A hand went up to her right shoulder, releasing the massive pauldron and lowering it to the ground as she took a knee.

With a bit of maneuvering, she managed to pull a small mirror from just behind the pauldron mounting point, halfway hidden beneath the chest piece's bolt assembly that kept the front and the back together.

Gently, she pulled the mirror up to her faceplate, inspecting it for damage. The first thing she saw was that a section on the edge had melted enough to deform the mirror, and there was no way to repair it with the tools she had on hand. With an exasperated sigh, she slid it back into its place and reslotted the shoulder pauldron onto her armor. She'd be going without the tracker, and while it would be missed, she would survive without it, hopefully.

Standing and looking at the Marines, she saw that Roberts had finished briefing his men, and he was making his way back to her. Steel eyes met green. "Ma'am, ready to move on your order."

"Good, you'll lead your men to the objective, I'll do what I can to try and spearhead or support any movements you make. Let's move out."

Roberts' eyebrows knit in confusion, but he slowly nodded. "Aye, ma'am." Turning back to his men, he raised his hand into the air, circled it once, and then jabbed it towards the battery that once again fired, the sound ringing off of the walls. "Get moving, split up into platoons, keep the lines equalized. The Commander will be our hammer!"

"'Rah!" The Marines cried out, splitting into three groups of two dozen each and disappearing into the passages and doorways that led towards the industrial zone. Roberts, with a command group of a dozen men, as well as his body guards, moved behind them with Six taking up the rear, heavy boots ringing off of the concrete reassuringly to those that she followed.

They moved in silence, Roberts using a tacpad to keep track of his men as they split into their sectors, moving quickly and efficiently, and Six's boots went quiet as she started hiding herself. Spartans, even wearing half a ton of armor, could be surprisingly quiet, and more than once did one of the body guards look back to see if she was still with them, flinching as they realized she was still there.

In the distance, off to her left, the first shots started ringing out, the staccato chatter of assault rifles going up was followed quickly by the roar of a light machine gun suppressing whatever they had run into. Plasma rifles whined in return, and even the cough of a carbine sounded. The gunfire lasted nearly 30 seconds, before petering off into nothing. It was over as soon as it had started.

On the comms, Six heard a Marine call in. " _First platoon, contact with a squad sized force, mostly Grunts and a Brute. No casualties, out_."

The men covering Roberts steadied, weapons held tighter and heads swiveling to watch for any visitors they had. Six turned, walking backwards as she looked the way they had come, before looking forward again at their backs. Nothing had come for them, at least, not yet.

A howl went up, returned by others as a single Brute called for his kin, and was answered in kind. The bodyguards, veterans all, felt the drops of sweat already beading on their brow increase, growing heavy with anticipation and the high that always came with combat. Six frowned as the sound hit her ears, knowing that the rest of the Marines would be engaged soon.

The walls of a warehouse they were passing through gave way to the evening light, the sun touching the horizon now. Now, concrete covered the ground completely, turning black as it gave in to asphalt, before returning to concrete. A maze of piping, more warehouses, and abandoned vehicles and cargo containers sat to obscure the way.

More gunfire started up on the right side, abruptly rather than slowly. It was as if an entire platoon had lit up at once, the radio crackling quickly. " _This is Baker,_ _third_ _platoon has been engaged in force. Brutes mostly."_ The rattle of gunfire was heavy in the microphone. " _They've got Hunters! Marines, fall back now!"_

More gunfire and the channel cut out. Roberts turned back to Six, steel eyes telling her to go. She was already moving, shotgun steady in strong hands as she sprinted off to the left and down an alley that led onto a side road filled with jersey barriers and a smattering of Human corpses, along with the occasional Grunt. Even now, with boots stomping across the concrete as fast as she could move them, she could hear the gunfire intensify and then the synthetic pulse of fuel rod cannons firing. A Human scream filled the air and she pushed herself harder. Marine IFF tags began to show up through the walls as she got closer, and she ducked down another side road. Several turns and zig zags later and she could see the green beam of a fuel rod cannon passing over the opening of the final alley, a Hunter stomping out in front of her.

* * *

Second Lieutenant Randal Baker, leader of third platoon, ducked back into cover, the barrel of his MA5C smoking. He slammed another magazine into the weapon and chambered a round, the reassuring click always there to calm his nerves whenever he knew the bolt was ready. Another Marine was hit by a bolt of blue plasma, the green beam from the fuel rod cannons hitting him a moment later and cutting him completely in half.

Baker winced, before he pulled himself up and set his rifle on the concrete barrier he had covered behind, pulling the trigger with short, controlled bursts. He pushed the pain down, and watched the tracers from the fire soak into a Hunter's armor. The orange and blue behemoths were like tanks, never going down no matter how much fire was put on them. He had heard from intel that the armor from fallen Hunters was several centimeters thick and strong enough that direct hits from SPNKr rockets sometimes left it only scorched. The only thing that would reliably kill Hunters was a tank or a lot of luck, and he was short on both.

The bolt clicked empty again, locking back. He cursed and ejected the mag before sliding in a new one. When he looked up from the newly cycled bolt, he saw the fuel rod cannon shining, getting ready to fire again and hit him, and when the weapon discharged, he had all of a second to say his prayers.

But the end never came. As the weapon fired, a blue blur came form the side, smashing into the Hunter at high speed and throwing the fuel rod gun off target, the beam passing by him close enough that he felt his skin blister up on the side of his face and his arm.

Cursing, he forced himself to watch, to take up his gun and suppress the Brutes that were looking back to see why their Hunter had roared. Then, Marines and Covenant alike saw what had happened.

In the middle of an abandoned main road, with tracer fire and plasma bolts passing by each other in a deadly crossfire, Noble Six had smashed into the Hunter and threw it off balance, nearly toppling it. Now, with several eyes on her, she took on a Hunter in close combat, a knife glinting in her hands as it caught the sun in just the right way. It was as if electricity was dancing across her hand, the blade burying itself in the Hunter before being pulled back quickly, then shoved home again just as fast.

The Hunter, big and armored as it was, was hopeless in hand to hand combat against a Spartan. It could move quickly, quicker than any Marine even, but not as fast as a Spartan. It threw its shield and fuel rod gun around, trying to use them as clubs. It lowered its shoulder in an attempt to smash into her with enough force to break even her reinforced bones. But none of them connected, with the woman dancing around them with all the grace of a ballet dancer.

Baker saw the other Hunter, the second of the bonded pair, roaring and turning to try and help its kin take on the Spartan. It raised its shield and got ready to bring it down on her helpless back. Baker nearly shouted for her, but she was faster, helmet turning as if on a swivel before she leaped back, almost into the embrace of the first Hunter. The shield came crashing down and pierced the asphalt, chunks standing up around it as Noble Six advanced on the immobilized Hunter, knife in hand.

Baker couldn't call out to her at this distance, but he could call to his men. "Focus fire! Pin the first one down! Hit it with everything you've got!"

The only response he needed was the volume of gunfire that poured out in a bright wall of burning chemical tracers, chattering assault rifles augmented by the deep thunks of the squad's light machine gun, even several grenades getting thrown by the strongest in the unit.

The first Hunter was hit by the fusillade, chunks of orange being torn out of its midsection as the rounds tore into it, and with a guttural wail, it slumped to the ground, leaking more orange blood as individual worms crawled out of the armor, most dying before they could get too far. Whatever was left was blown away by the grenades blowing up just short of the massive suit of armor left where it had fallen.

The second Hunter, now with Noble Six clinging to it like a heavily armored chimp, roared again at the death of its bonded kin, shaking itself like a massive dog and throwing her free, but not before she left a parting gift.

Rolling to her feet as she hit the ground, the grenade she had planted in the Hunter blew, scattering orange gore and viscera all over the place, most going on the ground but some splashing across the walls of the buildings.

Six's weapon came up, the shotgun pointing at a nearby Brute, blowing it away with two shots. With the Hunter pair annihilated by the combined efforts of the Spartan and Marines, the Brutes began to falter, some losing themselves to their blood lust and throwing down weapons to charge the Demon. Marine fire was accurate and punishing, ripping into the Brutes and dropping them. Others tried to retreat, turning and running. One was taken down as a portion of his knee was blown to pieces by one of the heavy rounds fired from the Marine rifles.

Baker frowned, stepping out of cover as the fighting ceased. Activating his mic, he started moving for the Spartan. "Check casualties, get ready to move again." With response clicks sounding in his ear, he cut the channel and saw what she was doing. Six had knelt down next to the Brute, one massive knee planted in its back while her knife glinted against its throat.

Her head moved slightly, but he couldn't hear her, only the pained growling of the downed alien. Baker's frown only deepened, but he cleared it and pursed his lips as he saw her knife sink into the hairy neck, before being pulled back out and wiped off on the Brute's back.

Baker cleared his throat, the helmet lifting to look at him. "Anything, ma'am?"

She sheathed her knife, the blade rasping as it slid back into its home. "Negative. Start moving again when you can. I'm returning to the center. Call if you need more assistance."

With that, Six stood back up, shotgun in hands, and looked off past his right shoulder. Baker's eyes followed her as she moved off into another alleyway barely big enough for her to move through, and disappeared into the shadows.

With a sigh that passed through his nose, he saw his men had gathered together, ready to move once more, and he started to press on again. Absentmindedly, he felt and heard raindrops beginning to patter against his helmet, and it quickly became a downpour that only made him shake his head.

The war's end was in sight.

* * *

Marines from second platoon, the center group on the push to the gun, had weapons up and aimed as armor scraped across concrete, their Spartan overwatch showing herself with a tilt of her helmet. Marines, even veterans, could be rattled still, and they lowered their weapons with a sense of relief as Six moved into the middle of their formation. Her HUD showed one Marine with the silver bar of a first lieutenant, and she moved closer to him.

The lieutenant, his IFF reading as Kurt Strauss, looked over at her, nodding in greeting. "Ma'am. Good to have you with us."

None of them stopped moving, with time as short as it was. Six nodded back, but didn't say anything. In front of them, the massive bulk of the Voi Metalworks rose up out of the heavy rainfall that had blanketed the area. The sounds of gunfire and plasma discharge could be heard faintly, with some screams getting through, and the warped pulse of more fuel rods firing.

The Lieutenant was quick on his wits. "Hunters. Marines! Double time it to the metal works!"

At the drop of a hat, the Marines were hustling, gear rattling like a car halfway to the scrap heap, but none of them complained as they forced themselves onward under the weight of over 60 pounds of armor and ammo. They knew there was worse to deal with.

Six kept pace with them effortlessly, the big woman towering over the rest of the men and women that belonged to second platoon. Almost twenty feet ahead of her, the pointman slammed into cover on the left side of the massive cargo loading bay, peeking around the corner and quickly drawing it back, a plasma bolt flying where his head had been. With a curse, he jammed his weapon around the wall and held the trigger down. Brass casings flew through the air like glittering shards, and when it went dry, he pulled it back and reloaded.

The Lieutenant was up against the other side, and looked over to tell Six his plan, but the Spartan had disappeared. A cloud of dust was all that remained to show she had been there at all. Peeking around the corner, his lips parted as he saw Six had committed herself to combat already, deep in a line of Brutes that had been caught off guard as much as he had been. Two lie dead already, with three more gathering their wits.

Strauss yelled to be heard over the gunfire, the screams, the rain. "Covering fire!" The Marines that had quickly filled the doorway rushed through, weapons firing as they stormed in with water and shell casings leaving a trail. One Brute went down, missing most of his chest from the concentrated fire, and another was stopped just short of swinging his spike rifle down on Six's back before she could turn from the third Brute's corpse.

The Spartan turned quicker as she heard more screams, and civilians in the garb that was worn by most laborers in the area came sprinting in, some nearly tripping on themselves, and another civilian came hurtling through the air before impacting the wall with a wet squelch that left a massive red stain where he hit.

That was all Six needed, moving the way the workers had come, knowing that was where she needed to be. Marines followed quickly, and coming around a corner covered by a metal shipping container, two Hunters stood over another downed worker, shields raised to finish him off. These were different from the others, clad in golden colored armor rather than the standard blue.

Six's shotgun was up, the slide racking so fast it was as if it was an old slamfire style weapon. Several massive chunks were blown out of the Hunter's midsection, and with the weapon empty, she swung it up and let go. The barrel of the weapon spun around once, moving like a top, and the end came back down in her hand, grasped like a club as she pushed forward.

With a heave and a yell of exertion that the Marines heard, firing on the other Hunter to keep it pinned behind its now lowered shield, Six swung it with all of her might. The first Hunter, stunned by the loss of so many of its colony members, was wide open. A portion of its midsection simply disappeared as the stock of the shotgun cored the giant alien colony, nearly bisecting it completely before the sheer force of the impact snapped the weapon in half, the woman grunting as she felt her shoulders absorb the shock of such a hit. She could feel it reverberating through her arms and into her chest, her hands stinging despite the callouses and the heavy gauntlets.

Dropping the useless stock of the shotgun, Six didn't watch the Hunter go down like a sack of wet rocks. The ground shaking tremor she felt was enough for her, and she scooped up the cowering worker by his collar and held him under her arm, moving as fast as she could back to the Marine line.

They made a hole for her, backing up and spreading out as she passed through with the civilian. The anguished roar of the remaining Hunter meant that it no longer hid behind its shield. With the loss of its bond brother, there was nothing left for it to live for, and it charged the line. Chunks were taken out of it as it rushed the Marines, who quickly realized that staying and fighting was a death sentence. One was too slow, and with the Hunter lowering its shoulders, spines popped out of its back and ripped the Marine to shreds.

Another turned and tried to fire the rest of his magazine, but he was too slow as well. He squeezed his eyes closed and waited for the end, when he was thrown back, skidding across the concrete floor for several feet.

The sound of steel groaning told him he was still alive, and he opened his eyes. The fuel rod cannon that had been raised and swung had been stopped, held in two hands as Noble Six held it up. Her knees bent slightly, and her armor was shaking, before she grunted loudly and pushed back against the giant Hunter. The fuel rod gun was thrown away, the Hunter stumbling, but his shield came up like a counter weight and hit the Spartan in the midsection, knocking her several feet away.

"Rockets! Get rockets!" Strauss called out, assault rifle chattering loudly as he tried to cover the downed woman.

"Copy!" Another Marine rushed in, rocket launcher balanced on his shoulder. Taking a knee, he sighted in on the Hunter that was moving to avenge its lost brother, the Spartan unable to counter him again as the armor slowly struggled back to its feet.

"Backblast!" He cried, and a second later, the launcher gasped loudly and sent a rocket downrange. Hitting the Hunter dead on in the unprotected back, it blew the hunter to pieces, globs of eels and burnt gore came raining down, covering the area and coating the blue armor in a thin orange spray.

Marines began running past her, weapons up and covering, when Strauss reached her, weapon in one hand as his free hand waved in front of her visor, grabbing the attention of the woman inside.

"You good to keep going?"

Strauss watched her nod her head, not making any sounds to note that she was uncomfortable. Even her voice was level, not a waver to be heard. "We keep going. That gun needs to be taken down, and it needs to happen now."

* * *

Inside the armor, Six bit her cheek as she took a weapon offered by another one of Strauss's men. Her HUD blared a low warning tone that she quickly silenced, her feet carrying her forward despite the pain she felt in her side.

Displays came up showing her biosigns. Recording showed that her heart rate had spiked up to 140, something rare for her, and a list of warnings scrolled past it. Two ribs on her right side had been cracked, and had nearly broken. Biofoam injectors in her armor applied some to her chest, attempting to stiffen the affected area and numb the pain.

She pushed it to the back of her mind, her right hand shaking ever so slightly as it faded to nothing. Green eyes narrowed, before opening wide and taking in her surroundings.

Her discarded shotgun lay broken in half across the floor, where the Hunter had been destroyed. A frown. She had gotten used to the power it gave her, but they never lasted long on the field, either through lack of ammo or simply breaking down. Spartan deployments were ruthless on the materials and gear they used.

Around her, civilians took up whatever they could for weapons, some even being given the offered sidearms of Marines as the UNSC force pushed on. Holes in the roof made by detonations and other attacks let rain fall through in heavy sheets, acting like curtains that blocked out whatever was on the opposite side of the viewer.

Marines led the way, with Six taking her assault rifle up in both hands and making sure to check that it was ready for more fighting. Outside, the heavy form of the AA battery stood as a silhouette in the rain, firing once more and letting a torrent of steam add to the heavy mist that had come down with the rain. Visibility was nearly nonexistent, with things even ten feet out becoming little more than a muddled shape.

Six frowned at the droplets that covered her visor, but said nothing. The Marines next to her ignored it, most of them pleased with the cooldown that came with it over the hot Saharan afternoon, but the loss of visibility was already on their minds. In the distance, on the gun, they could see the lights from Brute power armor stalking around on added platforms halfway up the legs. Others moved near the feet, Grunt armor lights hidden and obscured by their plasma turrets. None of them saw the single light belonging to a Jackal sniper, but they were waiting for it, Marines constantly scanning for the ocular scope the bird like aliens were fond of.

The hiss of the gun's venting plasma filled their ears, and it shut once more, hiding the core away from them. Six looked over to Strauss, his pale, Germanic features covered in the rain that cascaded down his helmet and face. "Have your launcher stand by, wait for it to fire again, and blast it with both tubes when it does. After, we'll clear out the stragglers."

Strauss nodded to her, keying his throat mic and giving the order. The Marine hoisting the rocket launcher on his shoulder was beside the two in a matter of moments, ready to do his job.

Gunfire sounded again, near the front of the group. " _Contact!"_

A group of Brutes, with several Grunts, had moved down from the small hills that surrounded the gun, likely to reinforce the fallen from the assault on the metalworks. Six was in motion, rifle clutched tightly in her hands as she moved past Marines that were already running to the source of the action.

Another Marine, this one missing his head, was thrown past her, and she ducked. The grunt behind her meant a Marine had taken the body, being knocked to the ground. She kept pushing. A Brute minor, fur matted down and wet from the rain, roared. He was silenced by the chatter of her assault rifle as he got a lead dinner.

Another Marine was thrown past her. She frowned, her face creasing as she saw a Brute Chieftain roaring and swinging his gravity hammer, the massive bludgeon looking like a baton in his hands with how easily it was being thrown about. Six opened fire on him, the heavy shields eating the rounds with little more effect than if she was shooting spitballs at him.

He turned his gravity hammer around, secure in his shields, and showed the bladed tip of the hammer. It came down hard on a Marine that had gotten too close too fast, and it ripped him in half as the hammer embedded itself in the dirt.

Six cursed loudly, her knife leaving its sheath and then her hand a moment later. It spun end over end in the pouring rain, before it embedded itself in the Chieftain's eye. He roared in anger, and nearly charged at her, when another Brute got in the way, already making for the Spartan that had half blinded his packmaster.

The Chieftain, pulling his hammer from the ground, was ushered away by two Captains that flanked him, firing on the marines that had advanced to support Six.

Something about it struck her as off. Brutes never retreated, especially not Chieftains. It wasn't the time to worry about it, however, as the gun fired again and would have deafened her from the proximity and the concussion bouncing off of the small hills. The loud gasp of a rocket being fired went up and the core dropped down to vent heat, taking the rocket dead on and turning a bright red. A second rocket was on its way already, and impacted right before the armored fins sealed it back away.

With the core hit again, it failed and a loud, warped alarm sounded. The Brute that charged her was filled with bullets, his shields and armor failing, then his body taking the shots directly. He kept going, to his credit, and nearly made it to Six, before he fell limp with his screams fresh on his lips.

"Go! Fall back!" She cried out, turning and running from the dying gun system. She could hear the screams of Grunts as they fled, but their stubby legs would never be enough to get them to safety, and the world went blue as the gun detonated, sending whips and curls of blue plasma arcing through the air, falling all around her. The shockwave passed over her and nearly threw her to the ground, but she kept her balance. The Marines weren't so lucky, most of them getting put on the ground handily with very little of a fight to be had.

Six, her mission complete, hit her comms. "Command, this is Sierra 312, gun is down. Commence Operation Undertaker."

" _Copy, Noble Six._ _The_ _Undertaker is in."_

The voice that sounded had been Admiral Hood's, and within seconds, dozens of Longsword fighter-bombers and two UNSC frigates that had been hidden away behind hills and valleys shot overhead, displacing enough air that Six had to adjust herself to keep from being brought down again. Marines were still as unlucky as the gun had left them, cursing violently at being thrown about like little more than toys.

The UNSC _Forward Unto Dawn_ and _Ode to Autumn_ were setting up firing solutions already, missile tubes on their hulls opening and shooting out hordes of Archer and Screamer missiles numbering in the hundreds that climbed away from the ships for several seconds before reorienting and blazing for their target. Their target was the keyship that had settled into place on top of the artifact, and it did little to activate defense systems to defend itself. No shields were present, and the closest Covenant ships were out of range to intercept the missiles or the fighters. The Longswords closed in and dropped their payloads before pulling away and fleeing as fast as they could.

The thick trails of smoke and the bright exhaust of the missiles cut through the rain like bolts of lightning, their job nearly complete. Seconds before impact, the twin MAC guns on the frigates roared and accelerated heavy titanium slugs to many times the speed of sound, the keyship taking the shots dead center, and with the massive explosions that racked the ship, the missiles impacted and even more fireballs blossomed across the ship's frame.

" _This is_ Forward Unto Dawn _Actual, confirm multiple good hits on target. Admiral, we've broke her back, Undertaker is complete."_

Even now, Covenant ships, rather than engage the UNSC frigates despite overwhelming superiority, began to climb up and away from the smoke that covered the keyship. Then something caught her ear, something that overpowered even the rain and the heavy engines that powered the frigates. Something that made the Earth tremble beneath her boots.

The artifact, older than even the Humans that had learned to live again on a world made dead, was lowering itself, and the keyship with it. Giant metal fins began to rise up, to flank the keyship on all sides and nearly hit one of the frigates. The metal flooring began to spread and split, and to reveal a cavern that lay beneath the steel, before a bright light was born.

Beneath the keyship, and the metal flooring, rivers of light came to life, casting light on everything before a massive beam took form and shot into the clouds above, giving off a shockwave that staggered the frigates, nearly bringing them down as the _Ode to Autumn_ struggled to right herself, and _Forward Unto Dawn_ barely avoided colliding with the now upright petal that had missed her. Lighting in the storm above arced from point to point in all directions, a light show outstripping any pyrotechnics display.

The shockwave came closer and closer, with Six barely having time to yell for the Marines to brace, when it hit her. She was taken off of her feet as if by a massive hand, angry at her insolence and upright standing, throwing her into a rock wall just barely taller than her, and she could feel the rocks shatter behind her, her helmet cracking against the surface of it. Her ribs, despite the numbing of the biofoam, screamed in protest at the treatment they were getting, and her vision flared white for an instant.

Grunting against the pain, she slid down to the ground, making no move to rise up as she was having enough trouble keeping her head up after such a hit. One final effort to look, to see what had happened, and she was filled with the blue beam thickening rapidly, and glowing a bright white, one that her visor struggled to polarize against. Her hypersensitive eyes were subjected to too much, and then she heard it, something that once again brought the bells to her ears. Those same bells from so long ago.

* * *

Noble Six struggled to her feet, shaking her head as her vision began to finally clear, the impact having done more damage than she had thought. Looking up, she saw something new, something different. The clouds above the artifact had coalesced into a deep, black void, surrounded in blue energy. Every petal that surrounded the artifact was sending some form of energy up to it, blue bands wafting up as if they were smoke being drawn in.

The two frigates, still struggling against what had happened, were sinking low, Covenant ships moving towards the portal and forcing them to take evasive action as they dropped altitude and rolled to evade.

In the center, the keyship had survived the brutal onslaught the UNSC had staked everything on, rising out of its pedestal on a column of blue fire that propelled it upwards and into the portal, disappearing into the void as if nothing had happened.

Static filled Six's ears, a rattling cough fighting its way through as Admiral Hood was heard despite everything. " _What did Truth just do!? Did he activate the rings?"_

Commander Keyes, far from the field, was the first responder. " _Negative sir, but he did… something._ "

Six watched the Covenant ships follow the keyship up, moving at full burn that left wakes of blue fire behind them, disappearing into the portal soon after.

Hood, with one more shaky cough, swallowed loud enough for Six to hear on the channel. " _Evac the wounded, regroup. Wherever Truth went, we'll-"_

Another voice took over the channel, laced with alarm. " _Sir! New contact slipping in, angels four!"_

A sound like thunder filled the air as a blue portal was opened to Six's left, several miles distant. A Covenant ship slipped out of it, flying at high speed and in an erratic pattern as it sunk down and barely avoided crashing into the side of the cliffs that had been excavated during the Covenant's digging. It rose up out of the chasm, passing by Six close enough for her to see something was different.

Smoke was drifting from it in thick black clouds, a greyish miasma coming off of it in waves. Pods and bits of debris were dropped from the ship many pieces at a time, all trailing that same grey substance that had Six's blood turn to ice in her veins, to remember all the things that had outdone any nightmare she'd ever had, to strike fear into her with only a glance.

It passed in front of her, rising again before nosing back down, passing out of view. A handful of seconds later and a tremor went through the Earth as a flash brightened the dark sky, the sound of a crash hot on its heels.

" _Did it just go down? What happened?"_ Hood's voice was confused.

Six was his only response. "Hell came to us, sir. Move to quarantine it. Code Broken Arrow."

Silence, and the gears started turning. " _...Copy, all forces, begin operations for Broken Arrow immediately, combat actions against Covenant forces are a secondary concern now. Anything that's not Human, put it down."_

With Earth under assault not only by the Covenant and their genocidal ambitions, but an ancient horror come back to achieve its final goal, Six took her weapon in both hands and took a deep breath, one that steadied her resolve in the face of the darkest nightmares, and set off for the crash site.

* * *

With the rain still coming down in sheets that rivaled that of a hurricane, Six could barely hear the boots of the Marines behind her scraping along in a group that followed the Spartan into what might very well be the death of them all. Gunfire had settled into a constant back and forth chatter that accompanied the cries for help on the radio, and the distant howl of the Flood as it took its first hosts since the battle of Installation 05.

" _Oh god, they're- they're not Human! They're taking the living and the dead and turning-_ " A scream filled the channel before being cut out by gunfire as one of the men around the Marine put him down, saving the helpless man from the horrible fate had had been nearly subjected to.

Six, jogging along in the front of the group, had coached them already, had told them what to look for and do. The weak points, their strategies, their methods, everything she could from the battle that had nearly been the end of her on High Charity.

None of them seemed to believe her at first, but Strauss's hard voice had made sure they all took the Spartan's advice seriously. He had argued that she had no reason to lie to them about something like this, and as the platoon moved into the section of the industrial park handed over to the Tsavo Desalination Plant, they met the first Flood presence they had seen head on.

A combat form, one in the shape of a Marine, turned on them with its distinctive growl, the warped vocal chords giving it a high pitched whine that made Six's skin crawl. One of its arms was ripped apart by the massive tentacle that had formed, bones and muscle ripped apart and shoved aside as it evolved for whatever it needed.

Two ravaged legs carried it forward, the tentacle slapping the ground and launching it into the air as if it was a pole vaulter. It flew true, nearly coming down on one of the Marines that had been frozen with fear, of the unknown and of the possibility he may be killing one of his own.

With the form still in the air, Six's rifle bucked against her shoulder, the heavy jacketed rounds firing from the MA5C and ripping into the combat form with enough force to throw it off course and send it crashing down to the ground off to the side, where one of the other Marines unloaded into it without a second thought. If Six was going to shoot them, then so would he.

Six frowned, gesturing to the Marine before jerking her hand towards the center of the formation. Another grabbed him and moved the man to the center where he would be less likely to freeze up, and then die to the hands of this extraterrestrial horror.

Six nodded, carrying on as her mind swarmed with the remembrance of her fight through the infected and falling High Charity, of the frantic sprint through the station in an attempt to both stop Truth and to simply stay alive as the dead filled the halls of the Holy City. Nothing had ever unsettled her so much. Not her family and world falling, not her brothers and sisters going, not the augmentations. The Flood awakened something in her, a primal fear that predated even the oldest Humans, something that had been planted in them after the firing of the Halo Array by someone greater than the sins of her people.

More warped cries went up, tearing her out of her mind and forcing her back to the present. Marine IFFs were appearing now, all of them flashing from white, to yellow, to red as they were hurt and killed, or their neural network was taken over by the Flood's parasitic embrace. Already over a dozen had been downed, and Six pushed on, desperate to save more.

With the loss of her motion tracker during the heavy fighting, and the lack of visibility that she so desperately needed right now, she couldn't risk moving too fast, lest they get caught out and swarmed from the sides.

A scream went up from the rear, the Spartan swinging around as if on a dime and she pressed back, the sight of the Marine in question coming up quickly. He was being mounted by an infection form, with more of their pods skittering across the ground. Marines began to try and stomp them out, shoot them, swat them, whatever they could to pop the balloon like creatures. The Marine already grabbed was struggling to pull it off, with another doing his best to rip the infection form from his comrade, but there was no use as the infection form stabbed the neural penetrator into the Marine's neck, his limbs being taken from him and flailing about bonelessly

Rapidly, conversion to a Flood combat form started happening, and another Marine pulled his uninfected comrade back, the man screaming as he watched his friend be consumed, little more than a pawn held by a hand from beyond the grave.

"Brian! We have to stop it, it'll kill him!" He screamed and fought, trying to fight back, when he saw the half transformed Marine eat several bullets, the puppet having its strings cut abruptly and falling to the ground, where it crushed the still exposed infection form.

He howled in anguish, looking back helplessly at the Spartan that held the smoking rifle that had fired those rounds, her aim shifting immediately to continue picking off more of the infectors.

The Marine was left a wreck, one that had watched one of his closest friends go down not to Covenant plasma fire, but to a creature he had no idea how to fight, one that took over his very body, and was put out of his misery by a Human warrior. The Marine that had pulled him back from the brink that had ended Brian's own life reared back as far as he could and slapped the Marine, halting his cries.

"Get a hold of yourself! We have to keep moving or it'll happen to us too! Grab your weapon and get your shit together, because _We. Are. Leaving!"_

With a hand to his face, the Marine wordlessly nodded and took the rifle that he was given, swallowing as the rain streamed down his face, masking any tears that trickled out of eyes belonging to a broken heart.

Six, the area clear of infection forms for now, looked at him, and he looked back. His lips parted, but nothing came out, and the Spartan turned away, moving back to the front of the group. Strauss, his face set in a grim line, had his weapon tucked into his shoulder as she walked past him.

In the distance, the warped cries and the sound of gunfire grew as they stepped inside of one of the half destroyed buildings, moving out of the rain and into barely working flourescent lighting that only showed the greenish fog that covered the ground at ankle level. Human blood and other green fluids were splashed across the floor and the walls, and broken, mutated corpses lay where they had fallen, broken beyond any form of repair.

Six led the way, her rifle up and her face tight inside of her helmet. Her breathing, steady and calm, did little to cover up the nightmares that foamed at the surface of her conscious, always keeping her on the edge of screaming as she felt the urge to just hide in a corner and cry, like all the others so desperately wanted to do, but she would never have that option. Death or victory would be her only options with the lot she had been given in life, and Spartans never died.

They were only missing in action.

* * *

Admiral Hood, stuck on the bridge of the _Forward Unto Dawn_ , felt his mouth hanging open in abject horror, cameras all over the ship watching as the hordes of infection forms rushed out of the downed Covenant cruiser, many reaching the Marine lines and causing havoc immediately.

"Open fire with all point defense guns on both ships, keep that tidal wave back as far as you can!"

The _Dawn_ 's weapons systems officer didn't hesitate, calling Marines on all channels. "Marines in vicinity of cruiser, hold fast. Danger close, keep your heads down."

The three twin barrel M870 Rampart point defense turret on the ship's sides and belly, and the _Autumn_ 's own guns opened up, spitting heavy slugs that pounded the Earth near the downed cruiser, dust and smoke kicking up with the flames from the high explosive shells, obscuring the target area and adding to the lack of visibility the rain brought with it. Marine forces on the ground cheered as they felt that their job was done for them, but that was short lived. Infection forms numbering in the hundreds were still crawling out of the ship as fast as they could, skittering across the ground in droves that the Marines quickly opened fire on again.

"Forward Unto Dawn _, this is Lima Company, they just keep coming! Requesting archer missile strike!"_

Hood frowned as the call came in, and it only deepened with the fire control officer's response. "Lima Actual, all missile pods were expended during Undertaker. You have to hold on as long as you can." After a pause and a swallow, he went on. "God forgive me, I'm so sorry."

Lima Actual, after what felt like an eternity, responded with iron in his voice. " _Roger_ Dawn _, we'll hold them for as long as we can. Remember us, and know we fought well."_ The officer went to cut the channel, but Hood stopped him, shaking his head.

Despair was already setting in on the bridge, and morale was sinking as they fought against unknown odds, and something worse than even the Covenant. With the voice of Lima Actual going on even now, Hood piped it through to the rest of the ship.

" _You heard the_ Dawn _, boys. We aren't getting any more support than what we've already got. Make the most of it and dig in deep. This will be our finest hour! This is where we hold them! Show them why they fucked up by coming to our world, by fucking up a damned good fight, by thinking they could turn us against each other_ _like puppets_ _!"_ An audible swallow, and his voice sounded ever louder, the gunfire in his headset picking up in pitch and intensity. " _Remember this day, because it'll be ours for all time!"_

A chorus of men responded, audible even over the commander's comm link. " _Oorah! Show those fuckers who's boss!"_

Hood listened, the words of a long dead Spartan king sending pride surging through him as the mood on the bridge moved from despair to something else, something that could only be described as hatred, as a furious determination that arced through the air like electricity in a storm.

The comms chatter went on for several minutes, going from unintelligible cries and gunfire to a chorus that seemed like a song, before Hood realized what it was. They were singing, they were chanting, they were _laughing,_ and it went on until only one voice was left, and when Lima Actual finally fell and joined his men in death, the channel went quiet, save for the boom of thunder in the distance and more gunfire as the next line was engaged.

Hood bit the inside of his cheek as he put his hand on the weapons officer's shoulder. "Continue firing into the swarm, do what you can."

"Sir," the officer responded, setting to his task and putting the thoughts of those men on the ground out of his head. Hood would remember them all, remember those who gave their life against something that had only ever been seen in fiction.

Moving to the strategic overlay that covered the holographic display table, he pulled it back until he saw what he was looking for, Noble Six's armor transponder moving through the industrial zones, always going for the cruiser even as more Marine IFF signals fell around her, only a smattering of them left with the Spartan on her push to the downed cruiser.

Closing his eyes, he exhaled through his nose, and then something changed.

"Sir!" One of the bridge crew called to him, a small earpiece in hand. "Report from the Cairo, it's big!"

Taking the earpiece, Hood slid it into his ear, voice all authority as he responded. "This is Admiral Hood, this better be important."

The voice that came over the link was strong like steel, deep and gruff, and one of the single largest pieces of good news that he had heard all day.

" _Sir, Master Chief Petty Officer Sierra 117, reporting for duty._ "


	6. A Promise

" _After I'm finished with Truth, I'll-"_

" _Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it."_

* * *

Noble Six was alone, her armor covered in the droplets that continued to stream down the steel and titanium plating. Green fluid and gore was splashed across it, even the red of Human blood on some areas.

Second Lieutenant Strauss and his men, taking losses of half of their force, had fallen back, aiming to meet up with the rest of the quarantine line, and knowing that they were ill equipped to deal with the Flood the closer they got to the downed cruiser, Six couldn't shoo them away fast enough.

She had been slogging through mud, blood, and more bodies than she could count in the three mile long trek to her objective. Her assault rifle lay discarded somewhere on the way to the end of the industrial park that had been her only cover and solace. A magnum was clutched in her armored hands, and it had only a few more magazines left. When that ran dry, she would have to switch to her knife, her bare hands, whatever rocks she could find on the ground.

Her heart rate, always a constant beat, even under heavy fire, had risen steadily, and it was hanging at just over a hundred beats per minute and staying there. The constant howling, the warped cries, the staccato cracks of UNSC assault rifles turned on their own. It all added up to a cacophony of nightmare fuel that had left even the rock hard sole survivor of Noble team mentally and emotionally exhausted.

Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, and every scrape on the concrete had her turning to check it. She was sorely missing her motion tracker. What little solace she had was the light rising from the crash site, where thick, oily black smoke rose in heavy banded ribbons to pass up and into the stormy skies.

The rain had slacked off slightly, but not enough to comfort her in the darkest night she had witnessed in years. The sound of a Human scream sounded off to her right, and her breath caught in her throat, but she clamped down on it as best she could, gritting her teeth and forcing herself to keep moving forward.

Another sound entered the fray, the high pitched whine of something just as good as a Pelican at this point. Overhead, the running lights of an AV-14 Hornet passed, the nose of the vehicle lighting up with the heavy roar of its rotary cannons, drowning out even the rain and her deafening heartbeat.

Static filled her helmet, a voice that sounded like gravel coming through soothing her addled nerves. " _Keep moving, Spartan. I'll cover you until I'm out of ammo or the storm picks back up again._ _Callsign is Yellowjacket,_ _Jawbreaker Three Seven._ _"_

Six obliged him, picking up her pace as she rounded a corner and saw more tracer fire stream into the ground ahead, hitting dark silhouettes that were hidden in the light rain and the darkness that had come with the clouds and the setting of the sun.

The golden visor flashed in the rainfall, the tracers and the muzzle flash of the Hornet bringing a flickering light to the area that was as if the world lit up for every round that went out. Six's helmet lights had long ago turned on, and they struggled to compete with the Hornet's devastating fusillade.

" _You've got a swarm of pods coming, your 11 o'clock. I'll light them up."_ The Hornet roared again, missiles firing from the wing mounted pods as it strafed left and right, dragging unguided rockets across the infector line in hopes of blowing them all to pieces. The pods popped easily enough, with little effort by even the weakest of weapons, and the force of their pops was enough even then to blow their allies up, causing a rippling reaction that provided some form of solace to the Spartan.

Six was on the shredded line in seconds, scrounging for whatever she could find in the remains that the Flood may have been carrying, and she was rewarded for her prudence. An older MA5B assault rifle lay buried in the muck, and she snatched it up from the ground and slid it onto her back. Other weapons lay in their own places, but most were damaged or outright destroyed from the Hornet's attack.

Six kept moving, following the trail of shell casings that littered the ground, Yellowjacket sliding the Hornet to and fro as small arms fire from the Flood came at him in badly aimed and ill coordinated bursts. Ricochets were sounding loudly, some of the rounds bouncing off of the heavy armor and hitting the gyroscopic turbofans.

Yellowjacket, his voice calm despite it all, called to her once again. " _Taking minor damage, right engine is leaking oil and has a minor fuel leak, there's some shakiness in the pedals. Almost out of bullets, too. Radiation alarms are starting to hit my HUD at this distance. Your armor sealed for that?"_

"Affirmative, Yellowjacket. Are you going to be able to keep her up?" Six responded, clutching the assault rifle as she looked up at the Hornet. Puffs of smoke were being belched out of the bottom of the right engine, a light gray rather than black or white.

" _Uh... probably. I won't be much more help around here. I'll go until I'm dry on guns, just leave it to- SAM launch, going evasive!"_

The Hornet was lit in the flash of a dozen burning flares popping from either side of the fuselage, and bundles of chaff were launched from the belly of the craft, between the two landing skids. Six frowned, her stance tightening as she watched the Hornet juke left, and then to the right.

A single missile flew up at it, passing between the left engine pod and the fuselage, before detonating not 15 feet to the rear. Shrapnel flew through the air, pinging off of the buildings, the Hornet's fuselage, and Six's armor. Multiple small holes appeared in the Hornet's fuselage at the rear, where several maintenance panels were lightly armored and vulnerable.

"Wave off! Get out of here, now!" Six called out to him, urging the pilot away in hopes he would make it out.

The Hornet began to spin, coming around and continuing its evasive maneuvers, and another rocket climbed up from the direction of the cruiser as more flares and chaff were ejected from the ailing Hornet. It dropped altitude, and went behind a building, but Six couldn't watch any further.

The scream of a combat form tore her away from it, and she wheeled about in an attempt to find it and end it. She wasn't fast enough, and a tentacle whipped across her back with enough force to shove her face first into the muck.

She grunted, wheezing as her air was knocked out of her from the force of the hit, and rolled onto her back in a slight daze that was just clear enough to bring up her assault rifle and pull the trigger down on it.

The Flood form, a Human corrupted by the influence of the parasite, was right on top of her, tentacle raised and ready to come down on her and likely knock her out or injure her, if not worse. The jacketed rounds tore into the spongy mass and sent green viscera and chunks of rotten bone flying through the rain, before a lucky _pop_ left the Flood form without its puppetmaster, and the body fell limp, its strings cut.

Her ears were flooded with comms traffic from Yellowjacket. " _Jawbreaker Three Seven, mayday, mayday, mayday. I've lost avionics and oil pressure on my right engine, moving to evacuate now. I'm sorry, Commander. Good lu-"_

The Hornet had risen into view, trailing an inky black smoke from several new holes in the aircraft, most fist sized, and the right engine was trailing flames that licked angrily at the thruster housing. It was still flying, but Six saw the world in slow motion as Spartan time kicked in.

A final rocket, rising up from the next street over, climbed up to the Hornet, baying for blood as the rocket motor roared. The rocket, moving faster than Yellowjacket could dodge or pop countermeasures, slammed into the cockpit with enough force that Six flinched and bit her cheek to keep herself from cursing as she looked away.

The flaming chassis of the Hornet split into multiple pieces as the remaining fuel and ammunition blew, secondary explosions engulfing it as the craft went down into another street several blocks away.

Six shook her head and reloaded her assault rifle as she pulled herself out of the mud, her communications network opening up with a blink in the right place.

"This is Sierra 312. Jawbreaker Three Seven has been shot down, rocket to the cockpit. Confirmed KIA. Does anyone read me?"

Nobody answered her, only static talking back to her, and she bit back another curse as her frustration and feelings of helplessness grew deep inside.

She was meant to fight aliens hell bent on wiping Humanity out. Not… _space zombies._ She was meeting her match, running dry on ammunition and, even with her prodigious skills, rivaled by only one other, she was reaching her limit.

Fighting through Installation 05, through the Flood on High Charity, through the jungle and Crow's Nest, and now, with the final push, she was facing the Flood again. She was alone, she was tired, and she was sick of it all. She felt it even now, the pit that had been in her stomach as Jorge disappeared in a meaningless sacrifice, as Kat went limp in her arms with a hole in her head, as Carter smashed his Pelican into a Scarab, and as Emile was run through from behind.

While Reach burned and her family was taken from her, she had felt the pit form. She wanted to throw up, to rip her helmet off and just bring an end to it. All she had to do was open her mouth and the magnum would do the rest. Would it really be that hard? It couldn't-

The static gave way to a voice, something familiar. " _-cus calli – le Six – Do y – ad me, over? I repe – ocus calling – ble Six."_

Six's mind, buried in the dark place it had led itself to in its deluded thoughts, flashed. She immediately went to respond. "This is Noble Six, I read you. Hocus, is that you up there?"

The static was still there, but the voice that came through was clear and understood, a tone in it that soothed Six's heavy gut. " _Whooo wee! Still alive!_ _Damned good to hear that voice again, ma'am. Music to my ears!_ " The heavy southern accent the woman had was enough to bring a hint of a smile to Six's face, a ray of sunshine in the darkness. Hocus was coming for her, bringing reinforcements, supplies, _anything_ would help at this point.

"You didn't think it'd be that easy to get rid of me, did you? I still owe you that drink."

The laugh that filled the air waves was like music, deep and hearty, one that came from the pilot's toned belly. " _You aren't gonna let me forget about that, are ya? I'm supposed to be the one reminding you! But I'll do you something better, Commander. I've got reinforcements and guns. Now you owe me two drinks!"_

Six shook her head, pulling herself up completely and scanning the area. "Yeah, yeah, just get yourself down here. I'm scared of the dark, y'know."

" _If there was ever a bigger lie..."_

Six was positive the pilot was shaking her head, even as the Pelican's heavy duty engines roared off to her rear, swinging into view a few seconds later with the rear door facing her.

Six stood, her rifle held at the ready, and the ramp began to drop, with Six's jaw following it down.

In the hangar bay, a massive figure stood, one even taller and broader than her. Clad in olive drab Mjolnir Mk VI, with a bright white 117 stenciled in the blocky UNSC script on the left chest plate, John-117 stood with his gold visor impassive in the red emergency lighting of the Pelican's bay. Six's helmet lights played over his figure without a word, and she nodded at him. He nodded back, before grabbing a box that had been resting at his feet and stepping out and into the muck.

Hocus, the engines whining as she fed power to them, called out to her once more. " _Call if you need me, Commander. I'll come runnin'. Good luck in there, alright? Continue on to the cruiser, don't worry about Jawbreaker Three Seven. He didn't make it out._ _When you reach the cruiser, call and I'll come snatch you up._ _"_

 _"_ Copy all. Stay safe, Hocus. Six out." She listened to the engines retreating, their whine slowly fading out, before she heard another sound. The Spartan in front of her cracked open the box he had brought, revealing new battle rifles and even a shotgun. She was quick to grab the shotgun, loading it and sliding it onto her back, before restocking her assault rifle and pulling to its cradled position in her arms. With an afterthought, she pulled up the squad roster, seeing the new Spartan's name attached to her on a separate squad roster, callsign "Blue One". His vitals showed up next to it, a steady, strong green.

The two shared a glance, and he spoke, his deep baritone sounding in her helmet as he used the internal comms between the two sets of armor.

"Commander, ma'am."

Six slowly nodded back, standing face to face with the legend himself. "Master Chief. Please tell me you're fresh and ready to go."

"Always, ma'am. Brief me as we go on what happened."

He turned on his heel and started stalking forward, his stride all business as he walked with purpose, in comparison to Six's alert movements that had her hunched slightly, like a snake ready to launch forward.

"Parasitic life form, known as the Flood. They infect the living and the dead somehow, take over the body and use it to their advantage. Keep in mind they're classified as-"

She was cut off as he finished the sentence for her, his vital signs spiking for all of an instant before his words came out. "Dark Black. I know about them. How did they get here?"

Six was quick to take up the conversation, scanning up and down streets to the left as the Chief did the right. "Forerunner ring world, they were on it. Managed to get on the Covenant's holy city, probably brought it down, and a cruiser jumped in not even three hours ago before crashing here and spewing the damn things all over the place."

The Chief glanced back at her. "Another Halo?"

Six nodded. "Cortana said the same as soon as we saw it. She-"

He froze in place, his gaze solely on her. "Cortana. Where is she? Do you have her?"

Six didn't respond immediately, shaking her head a moment later. "She stayed behind, on High Charity. Made me go on without her while we tracked one of their Prophets. I told her I'd be back for her, and I intend to keep that promise."

With the golden visor of the Master Chief on her, she could feel the weight of the eyes behind it more than anything else. When he finally spoke up, he uttered a single word. "Understood."

Six frowned behind her helmet as he turned, but kept speaking. "Halo, the Prophet of Truth nearly fired it, nearly wiped us all out. Commander Keyes and Sergeant Major Johnson stopped him before he could, said that it left the rings in some sort of standby mode to be fired from the Ark, wherever that is. The Covenant have been here, on Earth, for a month. They started digging something up here, and they got some kind of portal open. Home Fleet is in pieces and now we're dealing with this. Things… aren't looking good, Master Chief."

He kept moving, weapon up as he scanned, his form perfect. "If the Flood manage to get out across the planet, then Humanity is finished. Worse, whatever planets are still out there will be in danger."

She shook her head. "That's why we're going to blow the cruiser's reactor, finish the place off like that."

"Wouldn't be the first time a ship's core has been blown to deal with them," he muttered.

Six could guess what he meant, but didn't probe any further. She followed along behind him, the howl of more Flood forms going up as they got deeper into the quarantine zone.

The buildings were concrete ruins little more than broken reminders of what had been the Voi Industrial Zone only a month prior. Heavy fighting, even before the Flood, had rendered places all over the globe into shallow remnants of people, places, and more. Blood, of all colors and origins, were splattered on the walls and the concrete ground, their bodies long gone under the Flood's merciless hunger. Only those that had been broken beyond even the parasite's repair could still be found in the shadows and buried under rubble, ruins of their past life.

The rain had thinned out until it was only a light misting, and the clouds began to shift off to the side, finally giving Six a reprieve from the storm. With the weather cutting down, air assets could get back into the fight, but with the Flood having come into possession of UNSC heavy equipment, it might be too risky to keep moving Marine forces in by foot, due to infection, or air, lest they go down the way Jawbreaker Three Seven had.

The shotgun in Six's arms was a reassuring presence, and she looked up to see the clouds pulling away from a full moon, one that shined brightly and gave the two Spartans a light to guide them should their helmet lights fail.

The Master Chief, in front of her still, saw it as well, his helmet shifting up slightly before going back down to it. Then his deep voice filtered into her helmet again. "What's your status?"

She went through the list in her head before replying. "Motion tracker is gone, chest armor has been melted down. Green otherwise."

"And yourself?"

"Fighting since 2 November. Two weeks of slipspace downtime prior, no cryo. Before that was scattered fighting on Earth and Reach."

The silence after was enough, and Six wanted to ask what had happened to him, to keep him out of the fight only to come back at the perfect time, but now wasn't the place or the time. The mission came first, blowing that cruiser was more important than anything either of them could do.

The road in front of them stopped abruptly, a trench dug into the Earth that was over a dozen feet deep and twice as wide, cratering the ground as it went off to their right. The two Spartans, following the trench, saw their objective.

The downed cruiser was cast in an eerie light as blue fire coated several portions of the hull, massive gouges torn into the side and revealing the infected innards of the ship. Several scars marred its hull, and sections were sometimes outright missing from the force of the impact and whatever had happened to it during its capture by the Flood. There were areas of plasma damage on the hull as well, including a hole straight through it from an energy projector that had nearly sheared off the front half of the ship, and now left it broken off and in pieces a kilometer away with black smoke pouring out of it in waves.

No Marine forces had made it this far, and any that had were dead or worse. Bulbous growths could be seen in areas where the hull plating had been splintered in the crash, or broken off entirely, and Six's HUD blared a radiation alarm that she quickly silenced, relegating the red radiation symbol to a corner of her HUD. Mjolnir was sealed against radiation, and as long as she didn't get a suit puncture she was fine. Then again, if her suit got punctured here, she had more to worry about than cancer.

The Master Chief kept moving, skirting the side of the trench with his weapon up. He had been more than ready to take command, to lead the way. With his experience, Six was more than happy to let him go, content at watching his back in case something got too close. He likely knew more about the Flood than she did, and given that no matter what happened, she had never seen Kurt lose his cool, even at the worst. Even Jorge had been rock steady until the end. Another Spartan II, _the_ Spartan II at that, was bound to be an ice cube in this situation. But the spike she had seen in his vitals meant something to her, it had to.

She followed along behind him, her shotgun watching the rear, glancing over her shoulder every so often. The ground beneath her feet was unsteady, the broken concrete sagging under its own weight as it hung over the trench. She chose her steps carefully, sticking well away from the edge. They would have to angle their approach as they went, the cruiser having come down and spun, going from a smooth plow into a catastrophic roll that had flung other debris away from it, and made the trench into a wide, shallow ride that sloped up and down along the path it had taken. Now, sitting on its side, it was an ominous fortress to storm.

It wasn't far now, less than half a mile away, and growing closer by the second. The heat radiating off of the downed cruiser was coming from several breaches in the lateral plasma lines, and likely also from the reactor core. Given the radiation flooding the area, the core had definitely been breached, and that made their job that much harder. Navigating a downed cruiser filled with Flood and flames, reactor coolant, radiation, and all manner of hazards was a death sentence for anybody but Spartans. The Flood made that a bit more skewed against them, and it was painfully obvious to the pair that were moving towards the downed ship, rather than running screaming away from it as fast as they could.

The two moved quickly and quietly. They had switched to laser based comms, to prevent any type of jamming or interference until entering the cruiser, where things would get more dicey. By then, it wouldn't matter if the Flood could intercept comms, since the Spartans would have the parasite breathing down their necks.

With the cruiser looming, Six heard her radiation alarms again, silencing them with a glance and a blink, and pushing them off to the side. It was getting worse, and she could hear a static buzz in the air. _Something_ was wrong, and she didn't like not knowing what it was. It put her nerves on edge, and a glance back from the master Chief indicated he had seen her vitals spike. A look at his own showed her they were unchanged and steady, no sign of the jump from earlier. With a nod from her, he turned back and kept moving, no words passing between the two.

The ground widened out, filled with rubble as the crater came to an abrupt end, hanging down into the main body where the cruiser sat in its grave, all but buried at the end of its life. It would never see the stars again, and no living being would roam its halls after they finished. If everything went to plan, then nobody within a hundred miles would ever come near this place again.

Six glanced back up at the portal, off to her left where the artifact remained, and frowned. If they managed to contain this outbreak, they would have to fight through it and find out what was on the other side. More than once, single Human ships had found the Halo rings, had stopped whatever plans the Covenant had on the other side. With the damage to the human fleet, and Earth itself, she was less than enthused about trying to send a handful of cobbled together ships through and fight the Covenant's last major fleet that she knew of, not even mentioning whatever other ships could come form the reaches of space. The Siege of the Inner Colonies was less than concentrated, and the Covenant had more ships than Humanity could counter like that. The Fall of Reach proved that in many ways.

But now, all the chips were down, and Humanity had bet everything on the defense of Earth. If she fell, then Humanity would too, lest they be little more than vagabonds amongst the stars, hunted down until they ceased to exist as a species.

Six pushed the thoughts out of her mind. It was for someone else to decide where to point the guns. Six's job was to pull the trigger, and it was what she did best. If she could just go back to it, the thought process of being just another weapon to be aimed and used… would she do it?

 _No, no time for this._ She shook her head, clearing the thoughts from it, and the Master Chief looked back as he stood at the lip of the crater.

She mirrored his gaze, nodding. "Once more into the breach, Chief."

Wordlessly, he stepped forward and sunk into the crater, the slope having his heavy armor slide down and destabilizing the dirt as he went down, forming large ruts until he hit a stone outcropping that was barely big enough to stand on. Six followed along, several feet to the left, and she felt her balance come to her naturally as she slid down after him.

* * *

The cruiser blocked the moon as the two Spartans stood under it, little more than ants in the face of a sleeping giant. A gaping hole had been ripped into its belly, and already, Six could see the sickly biomass that filled the carrier, making it look all the more like the hive of disgust that she had come to equate with the Flood. Stepping inside and immediately sinking a few inches into the mass that had covered the deck, she was grateful that her armor could filter the smell out, because if she had smelled it, she would have vomited. Even now, she could feel her stomach turning.

The Master Chief moved in behind her, the laser comms still active, but he instead used the status light indicators that would flash on their HUDs for rapid status updates. Six looked down at the bottom left corner of her HUD, and the light that belonged to him flashed green once, solid and reassuring.

 _Ready_.

She flashed it back and started moving. The natural light in the cruiser had been snuffed out, and only a dozen feet in, all light had been swallowed up. Helmet lamps came on and played across the ruined interior.

It was a mess. Bulbous sacks of Flood mass pulsed like lungs, breathing in and out as whatever controlled them gave it life. Drooping spikes hung from the ceiling, and rose from the floor, covered in more of the boils and pustules that could have held any number of other things. The sound of skittering filled her ears, and she cursed the loss of her motion tracker again and again, before she cemented her mind into combat mode. She refused to let the fear and disgust take hold. The adrenaline was coursing through her rapidly, and her heart rate had gone up slightly at their entrance.

The howl of a combat form echoed from deeper in the ship, turning into little more than a screech as it pitched up before it catered off into a wail. Either it was just something that had happened, and they were fine, or their cover had been blown, and they were not fine.

Two flashes of yellow from the Chief. _Caution. Move slow._

She did just that, her shotgun up, hand on the slide and finger on the trigger as they slogged through the muck that was now covering their boots. A wet _squelching_ noise sounded with every rise and fall of boots, before it would suck against them whenever they came down. It made Six want to shudder, but she kept rock steady.

The opening room they had entered through went deeper into the hull through a tunnel made of Flood biomass, some of the original decking and walls uncovered, and only a thick tentacle hanging through a half opened door kept it from sliding shut. Despite the loss of all power, it seemed to keep wanting to shut, whirring against the tentacle as the motor whined, before opening and repeating the process. At least the first door was open to them.

She kept moving, stepping through the door carefully as the Master Chief covered her back dutifully, a reassuring presence in a fortress of darkness.

The hall led further on, and dropped down through a gaping hole in the decking. Six flashed a yellow status light, a burning green one returning solid. A one way trip unless they found another way out.

Six went first, shotgun up and sweeping the room that she dropped into, her knees absorbing the shock. Nothing came at them, not yet at least. The halls went deeper in, twisting and turning for a time, before a light shone from off to the right side, leading into an open room.

Six slowed her pace, shotgun up as her lights played across the walls, turning into the room and seeing the ceiling was missing, several dozen feet above them. But more than that, a light from below caught her eye, one shining an electric blue.

Inside of a sealed container, one held on top of a pedestal, a blue light flashed sullenly, one beckoning to her. One that brought a flare of pain to the Spartan III's neural interface port, one that had her stop in place, as time slowed down for her. Her vision flashed blue, nearly whiting her out, and she felt the weight of what very well could have been worlds upon her shoulders as a reflection of electric blue eyes that seemed all too real met hers. For a single instant, the secrets of everything began to clear up for her, but her mind couldn't comprehend it, and it was lost in the fog of her subconscious once again. But something else joined it. A voice that she hadn't heard in far too long.

_You are the light that a billion souls cling to. Will you carry this this burden? Will you keep the promises you made to them?_

The blue flashed back to normal, and Six's eyes were clear. The pain had stopped. A single red light flashed repeatedly in the bottom of her HUD. She flashed it back green, and the returning yellow voiced all the concern that the Master Chief didn't say. Another green sent to him kept anything further from coming in. She would explain later.

Moving closer, she saw what was shining beneath the glass canopy. A Covenant device, whatever it was quickly lost to them, displayed a small blue woman, one who rose out of it with a sense of urgency as her arms reached out to those she couldn't see.

"Morgan!"

Six's heartbeat fluttered, her stomach spinning in her armor. "Cortana?" She looked over Cortana, the bulk of the Master Chief at her side the instant he had heard her voice.

"Cortana, what are you-" He was cut off as she went on, her message being little more than a recording.

"High Charity, the Covenant's holy city, is on its way to-" It cut out, Cortana looking off to the side almost fearfully, before disappearing back into the device and going dormant, the light fading out of it.

"Cortana!" He cried out, reaching for it, but something stopped him, and Morgan had only a second to react.

The Master Chief was knocked to the ground by a Flood combat form, one that had snuck up on the two as they were lost in the return of someone they both held dear. It pounced on the downed Spartan quickly whipping the large tentacle arm back and readying itself to deal the final blow to The Demon.

A blue armored boot, covered in Flood mass, came up and sheared the offending form in half, before her hand went to the downed Spartan and hauled him up. Grabbing the device and hooking it to her belt, she broke radio silence. "We need to move, _now_."

The Chief didn't argue with her, his assault rifle back in his hands as they went to retrace their steps.

Instead, something else came for them first. Flood swarmed into the room, several of them coming for the two Spartans that had entered their lair, all of them brandishing whips, tentacles, claws made of rotten bone, whatever they could do to stop the two from getting away.

Six's shotgun roared, the muzzle flash lighting the room up completely as the first several forms were simply shredded by the spread of buckshot. The slide racked loudly and the smoking shell was sent on its way as another entered the shotgun's chamber. Another blast had the Flood being blown back bit by bit. Already, Six knew that her reload would be problematic.

The Master Chief moved up to her side, firing into the horde that was flooding in several at a time. The two Spartans worked together, reloading when the other was finished, until they knew their ammunition supply was starting to suffer from the heavy fighting they were being forced into as they were pushed back against the opposing wall.

Too many Flood had entered the room, and there was no other way out save for straight through, everything else in the room covered in a solid wall of the Flood's biomass. They didn't have the ammo or the time to try and chew through the walls at random points either.

Six unhooked a grenade and lobbed it into the horde, the grenade blowing a few seconds later and opening a second hole in the wall, where several other Flood forms waddled out of.

_Aw, shit._

She nearly screamed, her frustration getting the better of her as she loaded her last seven shells into the scatter gun. The Master Chief had already discarded the empty assault rifle, his magnum coming into his own and spitting several shots out, all of them on target on infection forms and dropping the corpses that they controlled.

"We're running out of options, Chief."

"I know."

His response was clipped, and he knew as well as she did that they were both boned. Making it inside and getting to the reactor core had been a fool's dream, apparently, and finding Cortana had done little more than fill the two with questions, those that would go unanswered in death.

The two had their backs up against a wall, buried deep in a heavily armored cruiser, filled with radiation and a parasitic life form that threatened the galaxy and possibly even more, and Humanity was on its death bed. The rhythmic pump-shoot of her shotgun was lost in the combat high and the feelings that burned at the back of her mind, that had been pushed down since she was a little girl, watching her world and her family burn. She had been told that she would be like The Green Knight, that she could kill all the Covenant, save the day, all of that, and here she was. She couldn't save her brothers and sisters, she couldn't save Noble or Reach, and now, she would be failing Cortana and herself. She felt the pit in her gut boil away to what may as well have been a lead brick, and if it hadn't been fake, she'd have requested it be her tombstone if nothing else. Then again, Spartans didn't get tombstones, only a number and three letters.

As the last shell in Morgan's shotgun was emptied, she hurled it forward, ripping her magnum off of her thigh and firing into the swarm, but something else was heard over the roar of magnums and the screams of the Flood.

Plasma rifles whined in the distance, growing ever louder as the swarm seemed to falter, some even turning back and returning the way they had come. Plasma bolts were already tearing through them and splattering against the back wall, the swarm being used up completely as their saviors stepped into the light of their helmet lamps.

The last Flood form in front of them fell, and the Master Chief swiveled his pistol to fire on the Elites now entering the room with plasma rifles already scanning for more targets.

The hand that grabbed his arm and pointed it up caught him off guard, and his golden visor looked down at Noble Six, questions in the mirrored gaze.

"Hold fire, the Elites are with us now, and they just saved our ass." She explained, her hand not letting up.

He looked back at the Elites, still scanning the area and the second hole that had been made, before he lowered his pistol. All of them were covered in the closed in armor that Sangheilli Rangers wore, their own reflective face plates hiding their reactions as some looked over at him.

He eventually holstered the pistol, and she did the same, before she let out a sigh and a silent saying of thanks to the Rangers.

The whine of a Phantom's impulse drives sounded overhead, and the two looked up to see a Phantom had hovered into view above them, a small floating blue orb coming down slowly, _humming_ of all things.

When he reached the bottom, he set his single eye on the olive armored Spartan. "Ah! Reclaimer! It is so _good_ to see you again!"

The Spartan's stance shifted, and she could feel the aggression radiating from him in it, even though nothing else had changed and he had barely moved. Reading others through armor had become second nature to Spartans.

He looked at the other, blue armored Spartan. "Another? A surprise!" Looking down at Six's thigh, he bobbed in approval, a beam shooting from his eye and grabbing the device holding Cortana from Six's thigh, observing it. "We must move quickly, before your construct suffers any further trauma!"

The Master Chief moved quickly, grabbing the orb in one hand and Cortana's device in the other, pulling her out of the orb's beam.

His voice came through his helmet speakers in a low voice, one filled with threatening undertones. "Leave her _alone_."

The orb sputtered at him, looking back and forth between his visor and Cortana's device. "But we must! If we don't get it to a safe location where I can make repairs-"

He was cut off as the Master Chief snarled at him. "On Halo, you tried to kill Cortana. You tried to kill _me_."

"Protocol dictated my response! _She_ had the activation index, and _you_ were going to destroy my installation. You _did_ destroy my installation. Now, I have only one function: To help you, reclaimer, as I always should have done."

Six entered his field of view, and he looked from the orb to her, and she blinked a single yellow light to him. She didn't like it, and she knew he didn't either, but he finally relented after several tense seconds. The orb snatched the device into his beam once more as the Phantom's gravity lift activated and sucked them into it, pulling them up and into its bowels.

Rising up, Six could see an entire fleet of Covenant ships had arrived, several cruisers burning the world with glassing beams as they hovered in a closing circle, and a CAS class Assault Carrier stood watch several miles off.

The Phantom's deck lurched slightly as it started moving, a familiar face waiting for them inside. The ornate armor of the Arbiter was recognizable instantly by Six, and the Master Chief had to force himself to keep from pulling his magnum again, especially when the Arbiter's mandibles spread in greeting to Six.

She nodded to him. "Thanks for the save. Any longer and we would have been toast."

He shook his head. "Toast? You would have been killed and infected, not this… _toast_."

Six felt some of the tension leave her, even as the Master Chief focused on the orb that was fiddling with Cortana's device. "It's a Human saying," she explained, sliding to the floor and letting herself rest for the first time in what felt like forever.

"Your Human sayings are so convoluted, so confusing. I do not understand them. But no matter. You have recovered your construct?"

Six nodded. "Yes. I had no idea she was there until you came in."

"I knew nothing as well, Spartan, until our fleet arrived and sent a coded message to me. The shipmaster marked it as the highest importance, and that it needed to be retrieved immediately."

Six shifted, her helmet coming off and revealing a face marred by sweat and tiredness. "So they're with you? And they're glassing the place?"

The Arbiter craned his long neck in a nod. "We must take no risks with the parasite. You know as well as I do."

She frowned, but knew she couldn't argue with it. He was right, and as much as she hated it, she hated the Flood even more. This place was nothing more than a graveyard now, and Six wanted more than anything else to leave it behind.

She watched out of the open bay door as the Phantom arced off towards the Sangheilli carrier, eyes glued to the closing circle as it burned away all that remained of Voi and the infection that had set into it. It was a cancer that had attempted to plague Earth, and with the scorching plasma raining down on it, Humanity might survive. Maybe.

Tearing her eyes away, she took one last look at the artifact, barely out of reach of the glassing beams, and looked into the portal that had been opened.

Morgan-B312 stared into the void, and the void stared back.


	7. Haunting Questions

" _Do you ever wonder what it would be like? If we hadn't been brought here?"_

" _Sometimes, but then I wouldn't have met you."_

" _...You're right. I'm glad I got the chance to meet you, Morgan."_

" _I know, Kat."_

* * *

The Phantom touched down in the hangar bay of the Covenant CAS class carrier _Shadow of Intent,_ hovering on a thin pad of air that let the unstable shape of its hull rest without burning the engines endlessly.

Morgan's helmet had come back over her head, sealing her in with the smell of stale sweat and her own breath, something that she had grown accustomed to since being ripped from ONI's claws only a few months before. She stepped down off of the side ramp, the drop only a few feet and more than manageable for her. The Master Chief, following the blue orb that had confiscated Cortana, was watching it like a hawk. Looking back to the Arbiter as his hooves clonked down onto the deck, he nodded in the direction of the retreating Spartan, his long neck craning down as his three fingered hand gestured to follow.

She didn't say anything further, only doing as she thought was best. It gave her time and silence, for the most part. Isolation would be a better term. The sound of dozens of craft in the bay, almost exclusively Phantoms, was loud, but did nothing to drown out the sound of the hooves following in her wake. She could almost feel the orange, lizard like eyes settling on her back, and likely the Master Chief's as well. He had been silent since stepping foot on the Phantom that had brought them here, and she hadn't pushed him. Not yet, at least.

Cortana had been with him during his deployment on the first Halo, before Morgan had taken her, before the injury that had put him on ice since before her arrival at Earth, and who knew how long before that. The first time Cortana had gone into the field had been with Morgan herself, delivering her to the _Autumn_ and the Master Chief. It had only been a few months since then, but Morgan knew how quickly bonds could be formed on the field of battle, especially when someone lived in your brain almost. She had been there, done that, and Cortana held some spot in her heart. She could only imagine what the Chief was feeling after over a month of her being constantly in his armor, maybe even longer than that, only to wake up and find that she had been captured, lost, and gods knew what else.

There was no limp, no problems with his confident stride, nothing to even note that he had been wounded as he had. At least, nothing that Morgan could see. Jorge, as heavily scarred and injured as he had been from his helmetless moments on Reach, had shown his age. He was fast, as fast as any of the IIIs, but becoming Noble's walking support had forced him to give some of it up, armoring himself more than the standard and moving slower, using his brute strength and fortress like defense to tank whatever came against him. If the Master Chief was anything like that mountain of a man, she had no doubt that he was even more deadly than Jorge, and in his own way, even more than herself.

The Master Chief had foregone the customizations that the Spartans of Noble and other Cat2 teams, leaving it stock and streamlined, bereft of any attachments save for the armored pouches along his waist and hips. His skill alone was what kept him in the fight, and with a passing thought, Morgan decided luck had some play in it. Training as well. Her mind returned to Jorge, to Kurt, to how no matter how good the IIIs had been, the IIs would always be a cut above her and her siblings. The legend in front of her only added to that mythical reputation they had been given.

She stepped through one of the doors out of the hangar bay, the buzz of impulse drives and Elites working in the bay being muted by the door, fading away as the Spartans moved deeper into the bowels of the massive assault carrier.

The ship was a behemoth, larger than any Human vessel by several orders of magnitude, and at almost three and a half miles long, it was a city capable of space flight. These had been the lynchpins of Covenant invasion forces, holding legions of Covenant troops to drop on worlds that had no hope in fighting off that many genocidal aliens.

She frowned, looking back at the Arbiter. "So what happened after we got split up, when the Flood had us both under Halo's surface?"

He craned his neck down at her, his gait a flowing stride despite the waddle that his reverse jointed legs gave him. "The Prophets and their lies were discovered, our high council and many of our warriors were slain as the Brutes took action against my people. We learned much that day, and the help of your own warriors helped to stop the activation of the rings. Your… what is the term… Sergeant."

She cocked an eyebrow, her head tilting slightly. "Hair on his face? Big mouth? Always has a fire stick in his mouth?"

He looked confused. "Big mouth?"

"He never stops talking."

His mandibles opened in understanding, before he nodded again. "Yes, John-son. That was his name." His mandibles struggled to make the sound, spitting as he moved them into place.

Six nodded. "Yeah, that's him, and I assume Keyes was there, as well, since she's here and not dead somewhere on the ring."

"The female, yes. She personally pulled the index from the activation console, a brave creature indeed."

Six hummed to herself. "So you decided to throw in with us because you figured Humanity was your best shot at stopping the Prophets?"

He didn't answer immediately, orange eyes disappearing behind the membrane covering them, and then the leathery eyelids, before slowly opening again. "Because you were never heretics, never godless heathens barring our passage of the Great Journey. The Prophets had us make war on your people, to cover up their lies and the truths they hid from us. Billions of your people and my own died because of this, and now we can only hope to make it up by finishing what was started so long ago. We are together in this, now."

Morgan could feel the weight of his words settle into her mind, sinking in and leaving yet another weight on her. Everything had been because of lies, because of wanting to maintain a status quo. Her family, friends, everything, had been taken from her for little reason other than the machinations of power hungry old men. Nothing ever changed, it seemed, and she doubt it would in the future.

The Arbiter didn't prod her further as she remained in silence, merely stalking along as if he hadn't just unleashed a lifetime's worth of questions on her. 27 years of fighting with their collective backs to the wall, billions of Humans dead, and dozens of planets left as nothing more than glittering balls of glass, for what?

What about something more personal? Her own life, of the other Spartans. Where would they be today if they hadn't been turned into last ditch efforts? She couldn't speak for the IIs, but all the IIIs shared that. Complete and utter loss, with orders to throw away the only thing they had left: Their lives. Would they have grown up to be scientists, artists, engineers? What would she have done? Would she have ended up joining the military anyway? She had no clue, and being honest with herself, she could only come across repressed memories from her early teenage years, things she had no answer to even with the revelation she had just been told.

Steeling her jaw so she didn't grind her teeth together and into dust, the Spartan forced it all back under a blanket to deal with when the war was over, or when she was dead. She doubted she'd ever come across the answers she wanted, or needed.

The hallway led down a winding corridor that left them against a closed bulkhead, one guarded by two Sangheili in the jet black armor of special operations, their armor shining against the overhead lights. The Master Chief, his reaction to them tamped down by decades of experience and sheer will, could only ball his fists up and unclench them to fight against the urge to throttle both of them.

Behind him, Morgan watched silently as they appraised him, mandibles spreading, before they caught sight of her and the Arbiter to his rear. Their behavior changed, the pair stepping back and crossing a single hand over their chest, and the door spread apart to admit them.

Six passed by both of them, the harsh overhead lights giving way to a dark room backlit by several screens and consoles, filled with more than a dozen gold and white armored Sangheili, almost all of them turning to see the Arbiter, and two of the legendary Demons. More than a few of them had seen dozens of the armored Humans fighting across the surface of Reach as it was invaded. Some, like the Arbiter, had seen one in the blue armor that Six wore now, at several of the major fights. Mandibles spread and stances changed as they saw two of Humanity's heaviest hitters enter the room, orange eyes dimmed in the low light.

Another stood out to her, a massive white armored Sangheili sitting in a throne hovering a few feet off of the ground, his left pair of mandibles missing. He radiated confidence and the aura of command, compared to the Arbiter to her right, who gave off an air of finality.

Fleet Admiral Hood and Commander Keyes both turned to see the Spartans enter, Hood nodding at them and Keyes showing a hint of a smile. Six and the Master Chief both saluted them as the blue orb that had led the way placed the device Cortana had been stored in on the table that filled most of the room, the beam coming from his 'eye' manipulating it in an attempt to fix its errors.

None of the Humans spoke, all eyes merely watching as the orb continued its work, and the silence was broken by the Elite missing its mandibles. "Will it live, Oracle? Can it be saved?"

The 'oracle' didn't stop its work, the mechanical voice coming from it sounding hesitant. "Uncertain. This construct has suffered too much trauma. Its matrices are… highly unstable."

Six felt a weight in her gut again, one becoming all too familiar these days. The deep voice of Lord Hood spoke up. "Maybe one of _our_ technicians could-"

The big Elite in the gravity chair sat forward, hands on the arm rests as his voice came out brokering little argument. "That will _not_ be necessary."

Hood frowned, closing his mouth with a click that Morgan could hear clearly. The frown on her face mirrored his own, albeit hidden behind her visor.

Suddenly, another light filled the room, an electric blue that had Morgan's eyes on it immediately.

" _Morgan!_ "

Cortana's synthesized voice filled the air, her body appearing on the device as she sprang into life. It was the same as before, the recording showing an urgent looking Cortana, checking over her shoulder and always trying to hide something from someone that none of them could see.

_"_ _High Charity, the Prophets' Holy City, is on its way to Earth, and it has an army of Flood onboard. I can't tell you everything. It's not safe. The Gravemind… it knows I'm in the system."_

It cut out, the body that belonged to Cortana stuttering and replaying several frames of her animation, showing how corrupted the message had gotten between its conception and their viewing of it. In the corner of her eye, Six could see the Master Chief's shoulders drop ever so slightly.

With silence in the air, she looked back at the Elite on the throne. "It's a message, nothing more."

He lifted one of his large three fingered hands, voice interested. "Let it play."

Her eyes sat on him for a moment, taking in the sight of his missing mandibles, before she looked back to the Oracle. At that, he went on, zapping the device once more and letting the message continue.

" _It doesn't know about the Portal, or where it leads. On the other side, there's a solution. A way to stop the Flood without firing the remaining rings-"_

Suddenly, her color changed, the electric blue giving way to a sickly green that had Morgan's eyes narrowing, her gut filling more and more with that nauseating weight. Cortana fell to the 'floor', agony in her voice as the last words in the recording went through, her still image staring at Morgan as if she could see the Spartan standing there.

" _Hurry, Morgan… the Ark… there isn't much time."_

With Morgan's eyes locked onto the still blue orbs that flickered in Cortana's hologram, the Oracle spoke up, apologetic. "I'm… sorry."

The big Elite from before, mandibles flexing as he nodded. "It is no matter, Oracle. We've heard enough. Our fight is through the Portal, with the Brutes and the Bastard Truth!" He slammed his fist on his throne, putting a period to his statement as the other Elites in the room raised their own fists, giving a roar of acceptance. These gold armored Elites had pledged their cause to him, to the Arbiter, and now they would see it finished.

They petered out, and Morgan finally broke the lock she had on Cortana as she heard a weary sigh from Lord Hood, looking at him through the reflection that he put on her visor. "Fine. We'll stay here, hold out as long as we can."

The Elite's shipmaster sat forward, arms against his knees. "Did you not hear? Your world is _doomed_." He stood from his throne, stepping forward enough that the two Spartans turned their bodies toward him, the Shipmaster sparing only a glance. "A Flood army, a Gravemind, has you in its sights. You barely survived a small contamination."

Hood's temper was fiery, finger up in accusation. "And _you,_ Shipmaster, just glassed half a continent!"

The Shipmaster's voice was low and angry, tension filling the room like a fog. "A single Flood spore can destroy a species. Were it not for the Arbiter's counsel, I would have glassed your _entire planet_!"

Hood lurched forward, a fist raised and his mouth open, as if to go on, but he was stopped by Commander Keyes, her hand on his shoulder to hold him back, and to ground him once again. "Sir, with respect, Cortana has a solution."

Hood turned back, a disbelieving look on his face and in his voice. "Cortana? Did you see her condition, how damaged she is? She could be corrupted for all we know, and her 'solution' could be a Flood trap!"

Keyes' face was set. "We should go through the Portal, find out for sure."

Hood's anger was back now, but it seemed different. There was no fire, only the weariness that his position and situation had put on him over the years. "What we _should_ do, Commander, is understand – clearly – that this is Humanity's final stand. Here. At Earth. We go, and we risk _everything._ Every last man, woman, and child. If we stand our ground, we might just stand a chance."

The Arbiter, silent for the majority of the meeting, spoke up. "No. If your construct is wrong, then the Flood has already won."

Six looked over at the other Spartan, now hunched over the holographic table, staring at Cortana still collapsed in pain, her form frozen. She watched him tear himself away from the image, slowly, as he stood to his full height and looked directly at Hood. She could feel the weight of his gaze, even not directed at her. "We'll find Cortana's solution, Sir." He said, his voice hard, a promise more than a statement.

Hood looked at the Master Chief, his mouth slightly open as he decided whether or not it was worth it, then looked to Morgan, and finally back to the Chief.

"You trust her _that_ much? Earth is all we have left..." He trailed off, eyes sinking to the floor as the reality of it all finally hit the older man.

"Sir, _yes sir."_

The Chief's simple response, hard as steel and backed up by the man's reputation, was as if saying it had already made it fact. It was one that Six was more than willing to put her name on too, and she stepped up, nodding as the Admiral looked back up at the pair.

"This is either the best decision you've ever made… or the worst. Hell of it is, Chief? I doubt I'll live long enough to find out which."

The Admiral shared a glance with Commander Keyes, and she pursed her lips, nodding slightly, before the old man left the bridge without another word. Keyes, with more to do than stand here among aliens and Spartans, followed in the older man's wake.

Six watched her go, feeling the eyes of Elites on her, especially the keen gaze of the half jawed Shipmaster that had returned to his throne. She looked back at him, and green eyes met reptilian orange. Nothing else was said, and Six knew this was no more her place than it was Keyes', but one thing had kept her from leaving without a second glance.

The blue glow that Cortana's still frame left on the holographic display table, and the shade it became as it glared off of the Master Chief's armor and visor, filled her gaze. She stood there, watching him, inspecting him, and it was as if the man inside had fallen asleep, standing hunched over her, committing his partner's image to memory.

Morgan, her breath leaving her in a slow, weary, wind, did all that she knew she could do. She flashed her status light, a solid green that would have grabbed the Chief's attention, and so it did. When he tore himself away from the AI in front of him, Six locked eyes with him through two reflective visors, and flashed her status light again. The green light said it better than she ever could have.

 _I've got your back_.

Several seconds passed before one lit up in Morgan's HUD, one that flashed for the briefest of seconds, and the Master Chief returned to his silent vigil over Cortana's broken form. Nothing left for her to do, Morgan turned on her heel, moving quietly out of the bridge with the eyes of the Arbiter and the Shipmaster on her back.

* * *

The Spartan retraced her steps back to the hangar bay she had come in on, passing by several armed and armored Sangheili, wearing armor colors from the blue of the lowest minor to the silvers and blacks of their field commanders and special forces, all of them giving The Demon a wide berth.

She had her eyes on all of them, old habits dying hard despite it all. She would fight with them, do what was needed to put an end to all of this, but she didn't completely let her guard down. They merely returned her gaze, doing little else. They had been given a taste of their own medicine, their people slaughtered by the Prophets in droves as the knife was driven into their backs. They were no happier than she was to be working alongside an old enemy, but there was more at stake now than just old rivalries and bitter memories.

Things changed as she entered the hangar bay once again, around half an hour having ticked off on her armor's chronometer. The UNSC _Forward Unto Dawn_ and _Aegis Fate_ sat resting on the emergency landing gear that all frigate weight ships were given for barely powered landings, side by side in the hangar with more than enough room to spare. _Ode to Autumn_ was halfway through the energy shield at the end of the bay, her heavy MAC guns cold for once in the presence of alien ships. A single Pelican sat off to her right, and the two gray uniforms that stood behind it were her targets. She moved for them, an older set of eyes catching her coming and muttering a word to Keyes, who turned to see the Spartan on her way over.

"Commander," she started, Six's helmet bobbing.

"Commander, Admiral."

Hood's weary face set its gaze on her, the cracks and lines in his aged visage showing less and less the confident commander she had seen on the Cairo, and more and more the tired old man he was becoming. Stress and loss had taken their toll on him, and Six wondered if she would live long enough to look like that.

He cut her thoughts short, his lips pursing before he opened them. "This is it, Commanders. I'll be staying here, trying to coordinate whatever we have left, keep Earth from falling." He looked to Keyes, his face softening ever so slightly. "Miranda, you'll have overall command of all Human forces on the ground, or space, wherever that damned portal leads."

Keyes, not missing that he had used her name, nodded. She was ready for the task. "I'll make sure we get it done, sir."

He turned his eyes on Morgan next, his blue eyes landing on hers, even if he couldn't actually see them. "Noble Six-"

She interrupted him. "Morgan, sir. My name is Morgan."

A ghost of a smile found its way onto his features. He remembered her request to keep her callsign, to try to keep the memories of her squad alive, and that she had given him her name instead implied something else. "Morgan. You'll be given on the ground command of whatever forces you need. If you think you know what to do, then you do it. Spartan intuition and instinct has saved our hides more times than I can count. I trust that the two of you will get it done. Come back to us, victorious, and maybe we'll live to see another day."

With that, the Admiral brought his hand up to the brim of his hat, saluting two of the many Humans he was sending on this wild goose chase, hoping that they would bring something back.

They returned the salute, and when the Admiral dropped his hand, he stepped back into the Pelican's bay and turned to watch them, the bay door closing slowly and sealing him away from them, until it lifted off and the Admiral was no longer visible to the pair.

Six turned to Keyes, towering over the shorter woman, and Keyes looked back up into the golden visor. "Miranda. If we're on a first name basis before we all go out to the unknown, then you can call me Miranda."

Six's helmet tilted slightly, but she nodded. "Morgan, then. Do we know yet what kind of forces are being onloaded for the fight ahead?"

Keyes nodded and started walking, gesturing for Six to follow. "Three frigates, all rearmed, restocked, and ready for a prolonged deployment. We've got six months worth of spare parts, ammo, and food calculated for the heaviest fighting we can load on. Hood is staking everything he can on this and for good reason. Each ship has a reinforced Marine detachment with armor and air assets and an ODST battalion has been embarked, spread across all three ships." A thought came to mind. "You've worked well with the ODSTs we've had so far, haven't you? Despite that rivalry they seem to hold against Spartans?"

Morgan nodded. "I have. More than a few have been friendly, easy to work with. I would _hope_ that they could put that aside for what's coming."

"You and me both. I know that some ODSTs from the _In Amber Clad_ survived the Ring, made it back home with us. Gunnery Sergeant Stacker was one of them, and he's already embarked on the _Forward Unto Dawn_ , if you decide you want company for the ride."

The Spartan's helmet bobbed. "I could deal with him if you order it, ma'am. Johnson too, if he gets bored."

Miranda chuckled, the first since before Crow's Nest had fallen. "Fair enough." Her good natured smile faltered, however, as she remembered the final group of participants. "A team of ONI specialists is coming as well. Led by Captain Greer, your handler from the _In Amber Clad_. Do you still consider yourself under ONI's control?"

Morgan shrugged. "Hard to tell anymore. So many of us bought it at Reach, I don't even know if they still have us wired up. Are the Chief and I the only Spartans deploying?"

The older woman nodded. "If there were more I would have known before now, but yes. You'll be working together on whatever pushes we need to make, be the scalpel that opens up a section for the hammer to get through. Have you worked with him before?"

"No, not before today. I thought he had been put on ice, and that's what got me sent out instead of him."

"He was. Took a big hit before some of the survivors of the first Halo made it back to Earth. He flatlined more than once before they got him stabilized and hidden away. Cortana worked on him herself, dedicated a lot of processing power to fixing him up. They were still working when Cairo got hit and his awakening was pushed back. I saw him when I returned, but he had only been thawed out, not woken up."

"You think he's ready for whatever's on the other side?"

Keyes looked up at her, a look on her face that all but screamed 'seriously?' Six shrugged, her hands up. "You were out of the fire and awake for all but a few hours when Cairo started going up all around us."

Six frowned, but shrugged. "Point taken. Where am I being berthed?"

Keyes pointed to the lead frigate in the middle, the _Forward Unto Dawn_ , and Six looked over just as the _Ode to Autumn_ touched down on the hangar bay with all the gentleness of a sack of rocks. "The _Dawn_ , officer's quarters just like on _In Amber Clad,_ XO's berth, to be specific. When you get out of your armor, have it checked out in the armory. We're still a few hours out from departure so you have time enough to get food, a shower, whatever you can do. We don't even know how long the trip will be, so… get comfortable."

Morgan nodded, setting off for the _Dawn_ after cutting the conversation to a close. Her chest armor was heavily damaged, and the loss of her motion tracker was fresh in her mind. She cursed herself, having gotten far too used to its presence, and when it went out her loss of situational awareness had nearly gotten her killed several times.

Just like Kat.

She pushed the thought away as soon as it had come in. Kurt had taught them to always trust their mind, their body, their instincts, and most importantly, that gut feeling. He had hammered it into their head, that technology could be broken and fooled, tricked and ripped away, but their mind and body would always be theirs.

It made her cheeks burn with irritation, frustration at herself, at her recklessness since Reach. She had been chasing the end of the war, chasing the little blip of light that was at the end of her tunnel, always running faster and faster to try and catch it as it retreated into the darkness that the unknown brought. Was she chasing a light, or was she chasing death? A final reprieve from what she called 'life'?

Morgan frowned, stopping at one of the makeshift ramps that led into the hangar bays, their elevators lowered to the floor for heavier lifting while one was cut completely for entry from the ramp. She walked up it slowly, in no hurry whatsoever. Running and fighting for far too long left her to force herself to slow down and take it all in, to rebuild her situational awareness. Hell, just to take a breath that didn't come as easy anymore.

At the top of the ramp, she saw Marines and ship personnel moving crates of ammo, food, parts, and more to their places before strapping them down with thick straps of material. A squad of ODSTs, clad in the iconic dark black armor with their blueish-purple opal cut visors, glanced up from where they sat among duffle bags and hard packs to see the Spartan entering, their visors locking onto hers as she returned the gaze.

She really didn't want to deal with them, or whatever their petty rivalry brought up, and she made to move past them, the exit to the hangar just behind and to their right.

One of them stood and moved closer, meeting her halfway. Morgan tensed up slightly as the rest stood, save for one that stayed relaxed, ready to back their comrade up. She hoped against hope that they weren't planning on accosting her so close to the end. A Spartan encounter before the war had ignited the flame of this feud, and she worried that another encounter would mar the end of the war.

He stopped, his heels snapping together as he saluted her, and Six returned it in an instant, her military bearing more than a reflex at this point, before she dropped it and he did likewise, peeling his helmet off.

Morgan felt a smile come to her face as she removed her own helmet from her head and hooked it to her belt. Green eyes met blue, and Morgan's pale, scarred features came face to face with Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Stacker's own tanned, leathery face, marked by the grin he was wearing.

He was the first to speak, his hand coming out ready to grab hers. "Done taking all the glory for yourself, ma'am?"

Morgan chuckled quietly, feeling it in her gut, and her own hand came up to clasp his forearm. "Someone had to finish the job since you decided you were done fighting for a bit."

The two held the grip for a few moments more, neither really wanting to let go, but they both did as Stacker's smile faded, losing none of its genuineness. "I'm glad you're alright, Commander. Congratulations on the promotion, by the way."

She shrugged, her cheek touching her armored collar. "Just another title that lets me do my job with less road blocks."

"Yeah? Ain't seen many Spartan officers. Highest I'd seen before you was the Chief, and I never saw him personally. I _did_ see him come off that Phantom you rolled in on. He back in action again?"

"For now, and hopefully one of us doesn't get knocked out as soon as it all pops off again."

Stacker frowned a bit, his voice lowering so the ODSTs that he had left only a dozen feet away didn't hear more. "His reputation speaks for itself, ma'am. You think he took that hard of a hit and something's not wrong with him?"

She shook her head, narrowing her eyes at him. "I don't know what happened, only that he was out of the fight until just recently. Anything else is either classified or need to know, and I haven't warranted it yet. He's not limping or any more messed up than the rest of us, so I'm fine with letting him lead the way."

He looked back into her eyes, a soft huff being heard only by Morgan, enhanced hearing picking it up over the sounds filling the bay. "Roger that, ma'am."

She glanced back to the ODST's, her eyes rotating even while her head didn't. One of their helmets twisted slightly, as if speaking to one of the others, before swiveling back to look straight at her. They didn't trust her. "How many others made it off of Halo before everything went pear shaped?"

Stacker's expression darkened, and he seemed to age a few years in the several seconds of silence that stretched out. "Just me and Maldini. We got picked up after landfall and you went off on your own. Pelican managed to get us back to the ship for redeployment and we immediately moved deeper inland. Commander called it 'The Library'. We were supposed to guard her, several other regular squads were farther out, multilayered net and all that. Started getting calls about some green popcorn shit and then everything went to hell in an instant."

Six's eyes narrowed, her mouth setting into a thin line of realization. "The Flood."

The Gunny nodded. "Yeah, but something else beat them to us. A group of Covie specials came in, had the Arbiter leading them at first thought, distracted us just long enough for the Brutes that were with him to knock us all out or worse. Right before I blacked out, I saw some massive fuck all Brute with a hammer, real elaborate, have one of his boys snatch me up. Woke up later in a prison cell with Johnson and Keyes. Maldini was kept elsewhere until they gathered us all up."

"The Covenant don't usually take prisoners, Gunny."

He only grinned at her, one that didn't reach his eyes. "Well, they did this time. Loaded us up on Phantoms right about the time the _In Amber Clad_ decided to lawn dart into the walls. Carried us somewhere, like they needed us for something or another. Johnson was real tight lipped after the Arbiter ended up busting us out. I wasn't inside for whatever fight went down or whatever happened, but a handful of ships dropped down and sent more Phantoms to pick us all up, bring us back to Earth."

"Helluva way to get back."

"Wasn't like we had much of a choice. Last flight out and all that."

Morgan hummed, agreeing at least partially, but she had to put an end to this, as much as she didn't want to. "I need to attend to some things, I'll leave you and your boys be."

Stacker nodded and crossed his arms, turning and walking with her as she made her way past the group of ODSTs that he had left on their packs. They all watched her go, and none said anything, but she noticed one of them give her a bob of his head, one that said hello, if nothing else. She returned it, some of her fears assuaged for now.

She held her hand up, waving back over her shoulder until the door closed behind her and sealed out the cacophony that filled the hangar bay. She forced herself to walk slowly, to take a breather for once. There wasn't anything she could do on a naval vessel, short of get in the way or fight off boarders, and neither was high on her list of 'to-dos'.

The armory was located near enough to the hangar bay that it was a short walk even at her slow pace. The doors split open to reveal half a dozen Marines working at putting ammunition and weapons away, all of them looking up to see who had come in. One immediately stood up, recognizing the iconic Mjolnir armor, even if he didn't know the woman wearing it. "Sir! Spartan in the armory!"

His call out to whoever it was rang off of the metal walls, bouncing back and forth and bringing a grimace to Morgan's face. He glanced off to the left, where another Marine, much older and noticeably grizzled, stepped out from behind a stack of ammo crates wiping his hands on his fatigues.

His eyes met hers and once again she found herself staring down someone more familiar than she'd expected to see here, and his words were a mix of amusement and confusion.

"What in the _hell_ did you do to my armor!?"

The southern accent that seemed to permeate the Corps' combatants was deep and rocky as the Master Gunnery Sergeant from Cairo station put his hands on his hips, eyes roaming up and down the battle tested and damaged Mjolnir, disapproval in his gaze.

Morgan's smile was shallow and sheepish, her shoulders rising in a shrug as she unclipped her helmet from her waist. "Broke it in, handled real well until that 'new car smell' you told me about was gone. Everything was downhill from there." Dropping the helmet onto a nearby workbench with a meaty thud, she looked down at the shorter man as he latched onto it, inspecting it for damage. "Anything you can do for me?"

He glanced up, eyes critical as he gave her a look that all but screamed 'expensive', but he let the helmet lie. "Maybe, maybe. Got a shipment of replacements just a few days ago, so count yourself lucky." His eyes settled on the melted spot on her chest plate, a sigh passing through his nose as he gestured to the reinforced workbench. "Yeah, leave it all here and I'll sort through it best I can. Keep the undersuit until you can get replacement fatigues. I don't want you stripping down in my damned armory again."

Six gave him her most winning smile, which wasn't much given her lack of any protracted facial expressions that weren't frowns, and Master Guns held back a grimace as several of her facial scars stretched more than he expected. "You're a peach, Guns."

He shook his head, shooing her away as he grabbed a set of tools from one of the crates. "Flattery ain't gonna get you nowhere, Commander, not if you keep trashing this armor."

With his work cut out for him, he turned away, getting to work on the helmet first to check its internals. Morgan, to her credit, made it out of the armor fairly quickly, dull thuds going through the bench as each piece of the almost half ton armor was set down neatly.

At the end of it, she was left in only the form fitting black undersuit, and she stretched her shoulders as the power armor came off of her for the first time in what felt like forever. There was little more she could do here, and she turned on her heel, moving through the armory and back out into the _Dawn_.

She felt different. She had grown used to the armor, to being sucked into the sealed undersuit and the heavy powered armor. Spartans grew accustomed to it quickly, many of them seeing it as a second skin that was more of a home than they'd ever get. They grew to feel naked if it was gone, and she was no different, but now that it was off, she felt as if she could breathe again.

Halting her movement, she stood in the hall, slowly leaning against one of the bare walls as it sunk in somewhat. Her armor was her home, her defense against an angry universe, her very being. Without it, she was just another Human, one ripped open and turned inside out and trained into the ground, but still just a Human.

She looked down at her hands, spreading her fingers out and turning them over and over, trying to see the skin beneath the black undersuit, but she couldn't. The air in her lungs left through her nose, slowly, heavily. Green eyes questioned what she didn't know how to answer. What would become of her after this was all said and done? Would she bite the big one on whatever the 'Ark' was? Would she make it out somehow and finally put an end to all this? What would she have to live for if not war?

_Us._

A voice sounded in her ears, but no words had come out. She was alone in the hall, and she glanced over her shoulder quickly, but saw nothing. The voice echoed off the back wall of her mind, and she frowned.

_Live for us, Morgan._

Kat. Of course it was. Kat would never leave her mind. Not completely. Morgan's heartbeat rose above its normal steady rhythm, the sound of her sister's voice getting to her again. She thought of the dead woman often, if only just the image of her face coming up, but rarely did she hear that voice.

The others, they never slipped into Morgan's mind like she did. The memories were there, but it seemed like Kat didn't want to be relegated to just what had been, but wanted to stay with Morgan, just like she had when they were children. She had always been stubborn, and it felt like her ghost was determined to keep that up.

Morgan questioned the voice, demanded answers. Why? Why should she have to keep going in a world that either stopped for all of them or that she had no place in? She couldn't just throw in the towel at the end of all this and finally take her rest?

_Idiot. When will you learn?_

Black eyebrows knit together over the green eyes, and Morgan huffed, shaking her head. Was she really going to argue with a dead woman? Was she losing it? Probably. She hadn't had a good rest in years. Or had it been days? She didn't remember anymore. She didn't even know if she had eaten recently.

Her hand came up from where she had let it drop to her side, the black material feeling like cold scales against her forehead as she swiped away a few loose strands of hair that had come out of the bun she had left it in. They were matted to her forehead, the climate control in the armor not having been enough to keep the sweat from hitting her.

She forced herself to get moving again, aiming straight for the quarters she had been assigned. She knew where they were. The _Dawn_ wasn't much different from the _In Amber Clad_ , save for changes in role and payload, but it was similar enough she could find her way around after her two week stint in slipspace.

An elevator ride and a maze of turns later saw her step into the small room. Keyes had been forced off of the _In Amber Clad_ on Halo, but she wouldn't be leaving the _Dawn_. She'd had enough ground pounding for the year. With the XO deposited elsewhere, it had let the Spartan gain control of the room, something she didn't know how to feel about. She didn't need much, a cot and a blanket. Not even that really. But here she was, in a room with more empty space than she knew what to do with, even her own personal bathroom.

The room had little in the way of amenities. A bed, a desk and console for use in whatever she needed, a chair that looked far too frail, and the door to the bathroom. Having long ago lost her modesty, the Spartan peeled the black suit off and left it in a pile near the door. It fell to the ground with a dull thud. Even the bodysuit weighed nearly 80 pounds, something she noticed immediately as it came off of her. She felt light on her feet, and the cool breeze of the ship's climate control passing over her body let a sigh of what she imagined was contentment pass through her.

Her eyes looked at the bed, where a set of fatigues sat, folded neatly and ready for her to put on. She wanted to just clear it off, crawl into the bed, and wake up pretending it had all been a dream, but she had been pinched and poked more than enough times to know that this wasn't a dream, just a nightmare.

So the shower won out. She stepped into the small bathroom. A sink-toilet combo and a shower just barely big enough for her to stand in, much less turn around in, filled the small room almost completely. Space was at a premium on warships, after all.

Pale white hands reached for the shower knob, turning it on and letting it heat to barely above freezing before stepping in and letting it wash away some of the dirt and grime, the sweat and the smells of the trials that had come knocking at her door. She stood there under the water, relaxing for a bit. She was in no hurry. The ship still had hours before they were set to cast off, still onloading more vehicles and weaponry.

But all good things had to come to an end. She turned the water off after five minutes, not in the mood for warmth, and stepped out. Water dripped down her body in small rivers, the constant pattering of droplets hitting the deck assaulting her ears, but she didn't care.

Her attention was on the mirror above the toilet, one that showed her pale appearance, haggard without looking like she had aged. Her hair, longer than regulation but kept up in its bun almost always, was slicked back from the water, trailing down in a wet mess that ended just above her shoulders. Dark circles had started forming beneath her eyes, and she put a wet hand to them, her fingers brushing against the discolored skin. They stood out heavily against the pale white flesh that made up all of her body. Her eyes roved downward, taking in the sight of multiple raised ridges of white flesh, and other areas that had the angry purple or sickly green of bruises fresh and old. Her chest, where the plasma bolts had splashed against her armor, was an angry red even now, leading from her collar bone down her right breast. Her fingers came up to brush against it, and she felt the telltale sting that it brought, but it was nothing that would stop her from touching it if she wanted.

Her eyes looked up, torn away from the patchwork of scars and blemishes brought on by a lifetime of war and the training it required, her body nothing more than a collage of old battlefields at this point. They instead looked at something else: themselves.

She had heard the quote during training, learning to read body signs both in and out of armor. It came back to her now, and she realized that she had never understood it until now. "The eyes are the window to the soul."

Her lips moved as her reflection echoed the words that she had spoken. Those green eyes, shared between herself and her twin, were dark. They were little more than green rimmed holes, voids that peered deeply into the remnants of the stubborn little girl she had been, sitting angrily at head of an empty dinner table. The fire had gone out long ago, dimming to only an ember that had flared when she was assigned to Noble. Then it was crushed under foot, like a cigarette smoked down to the filter and left on the cold ground.

_You were cute when you pouted._

Her eyes searched for the voice again, her lips setting into a tight frown. Was Kat going to bother her forever now? Would she never have a moment of peace again, free of the ramblings of a woman long buried?

_No_

A sigh. Should she start talking back? It seemed as if Kat could hear her thoughts, no point in making herself look crazy, talking to herself out loud.

The voice didn't answer this time, and she rolled her eyes. Figures. She could almost feel the blue eyes staring holes into her naked back, full lips quirked into a smirk that had always both irritated and amused Morgan. Now it was just an irritant.

The Spartan shook it all off. She needed sleep, she needed to get the undersuit back, she needed food. Too much for her to want to actually do, but needed doing nonetheless. She stepped out of the bathroom, leaving a trail of water that dried rapidly in the current of the climate control system. Already, she was mostly dry, save for her hair. A towel came from one of the footlockers built into the frame of her bed, and she dried the rest of the water off of her before finishing her hair.

She dressed quickly, the fatigues one of the largest sizes they had but still tight against her frame. Her muscles pulled the fabric tight, feeling like the undersuit without the pressure seal. It was comforting, in a sense. Her hair, still damp, went into the tight bun it had been in earlier. Looking down at the fatigues, she saw that there was nothing in the way of identifying marks, save for a patch on the shoulder that had the ship patch of the _Forward Unto Dawn_ sewn into it and the rank insignia for a lieutenant commander. The name tags were missing from it, and she could see the holes in the fabric where the stitching had been removed.

Gathering up the undersuit she had dumped onto the floor, she held it under her arm and left, just as she had come in, and retraced her steps to get back to the armory.

Entering it, she saw the marines had cleared out, save for one. The Master Gunnery Sergeant stood, still hunched over his workbench, but judging by how the armor she left had been moved elsewhere, she assumed he had finished with it.

Rapping her knuckles against the metal wall, she saw him jump, startled, before turning around to shoot her an angry look.

"I'm gettin' too old for this surprise shit," he muttered, but stood completely and crossed his arms, leaning back against the workbench.

"Awake, alert, and alive," she replied, giving him a half smile as she walked over to him and deposited the undersuit on his bench.

He frowned at it, but didn't move to work with it yet. "Took ya long enough."

An eyebrow raised, Morgan giving him a questioning look. "You would have had it sooner, but I recall you having a 'no stripping rule'."

He eyed her with a pointed look, but didn't comment on it further, switching the topic over to the armor pieces on the workbench. "You chose a good time to come in for a tune up. Armor was just as wrecked as when you brought the Mark V set in. Chest plating had completely failed. Another hit there and it would have burned through with enough energy to reach the other side. Heating was enough to melt the motion tracker down, completely scrapped it. Helmet took some hard knocks too, ran a components test and the diagnostics weren't picking it up, but you were about to lose dorsal and side cameras. Another hit and you would have lost them completely."

Reaching down to grab something, a cylindrical object that had several small copper tubes coming from one end, he held it up to her. "Vent capsule for the hydrostatic gel layer. Quarter full, means you were riding it in deep this time. If it hadn't vented properly you'd have gotten real hot, real fast."

He dropped it on the workbench, frowning at it. Morgan mirrored the frown, her eyes tracking the cylinder. "Any idea what caused it to start venting on me?"

He shrugged. "Can't tell for sure with the facilities on hand, or the team of techs required for the kind of work, but probably happened under that big scar you put on it. Multiple hits in the same area and it's a miracle you didn't get cooked like that. Armor's thick, but it's not that thick."

She frowned deeper, remembering the angry red splotch on her chest. "Yeah, about that..." Master Guns looked up at her, questions in his eyes that she avoided. "Anyway, my new armor. Tell me about it."

His eyes lingered on her for a moment longer, before he gave up the non-verbal interrogation. "Same specs as before, Songnam did some tricks and got their setup right this time, since we had the prior information to go off of. Came prepainted and ready to go."

Turning to a locker that was resting against the wall, he keyed in his biometrics, the door hissing and sliding open to reveal the same Mark VI armor that she had worn, but brand new. The color was the same, the deep blue that it had been before it was covered in blood alien and otherwise, not marred by the deformed titanium plating that had covered her chest. Scratches and blemishes were long gone, all shiny new titanium, sanded down to a matte surface to prevent glinting in the light.

The shoulder pauldrons were still the same bulky Commando variant, providing all the protection she could want or need. The armored collar remained as well, welded onto the chest plate with perfect accuracy, as if it had been designed like that. The rack for shotgun shells remained, but was no longer an empty rack, replaced by one that had holes for shells, as well as another mount beneath it that held armored pouches to carry more ammunition. She approved of that, at least. Dual scabbards for knives hung ready, one on either hip, and both were already filled by the standard combat knife, honed to a razor sharp edge by industrial forges. The wrists both had mounted electronics, one being a tactical pad that provided a dedicated overview of the battlespace and on the opposite wrist a GPS/INS system for navigation. Her armor could do both, but dedicated utilities were good backups in a pinch. An antenna rose up just behind the left shoulder pauldron, short and made from heavy duty titanium.

She pointed out the antenna. "What's that for?"

He moved around her, peering up at it. "Put that one on there myself. Extra radio-communications gear to augment the armor's systems. Extends the range by about 10 miles, and increases tight beam comms power. But, more than that, it's a redundancy, among other things they've added. More knives, more navigation and tacticals, and now more comms. Like it?"

She shrugged. "More backups means I won't end up getting knocked out as easily. I'll swing whatever hammers you give me, Guns."

He scratched at his chin, trying to think of other things that had changed, but nothing was important enough to bring up that she hadn't already seen. It was the same armor as before, with minor additions. "Well, you already know how it all works. Nothing big changed on it aside from the additions you can see for yourself. Minor shield strength improvements, almost negligible. But other than that, you should be golden."

She nodded, clapping him on the back gently, afraid of breaking his shoulder. "Much appreciated. Help me fit it out?"

"If you ask nicely, maybe." He joked, but gestured for her to take the armor pieces off with him.

The two worked quickly, laying out the parts together just like they had on the Cairo. Twenty minutes had the armor pieces out and sorted properly, laying on the floor in a loose shape of what they should be fitted on. Morgan, ever aware of his rules, took the undersuit and stepped into an separate room where crew served weapons were kept, and emerged several moments later, sans fatigues and once again in the sealed undersuit.

The armor went back on as quick as it had come off, slotting onto her easily. With the Master Gunnery Sergeant doing all measurements and fitting changes as they went, it never felt off to Six. He was a master at his job, and he had earned the right to be called 'Master' many times over.

The helmet came back down over her head with that same smell as the first set, that 'new car smell' that he seemed so proud of. At least it didn't reek of stale sweat and her own breath. Looking down at him from her place in the armor, she nodded at him, her fatigues held under one arm.

"Thanks for the help. I'll keep it nearby."

He waved her off, crossing his arms as he leaned back against the cleaned workbench. "Just another day on the job, Commander."

"Regardless. It's nice to have some support every now and again."

A nod, and he agreed with her. "Speaking of support. Got another one of you in here to work on. Hasn't shown up yet, but I'll be waiting for him."

She turned to face him fully, her head tilted slightly. "The Master Chief?"

"The one and only."

Frowning inside of the helmet, it was hidden from view. "What does he need done?"

"Proper diagnostics and shielding tests. Armor can do it all by itself, you know that, but control samples need to be taken in case of a one off success that fails every other time, and I don't like leaving shit like that to chance. You lucked out, and your armor was already tested. Besides, Keyes ordered it herself, got the work order on my pad," he said, gesturing to a UNSC datapad sitting on the corner of the bench.

Morgan hummed quietly to herself, the sound not transmitting through her helmet speakers. "Thought so. Call me if anything comes up. You know how to reach me."

He spread his arms, pushing off from the bench. "Aye, ma'am. Don't trash this set on the way back to quarters."

"No promises."

Morgan left the armory and its master behind, feeling that familiar tug that the armor put on her. It was powered up, and moving was as easy as if she was wearing nothing. It was easy settling back into an old rhythm, but she could feel the added weight of the comms gear. It was barely noticeable, being nothing more than an extra feather on her shoulder given her augmented strength, but it was there.

She started for her quarters, but thought better of it and changed heading for the mess hall, grabbing one of the chalky protein bars that she loathed but knew she needed, scarfing it down before she had even made it halfway back to her room.

Her quarters were just as empty as she left them, and she went through the process of taking it off and stowing it in a corner, the magnetized boots and pressurized gel layer forcing it to keep its shape and not lean or slide anywhere, even during heavy maneuvers. The fusion pack had enough power that, should all life cease to exist, it would still be there, ready to go, for another thousand years.

The bed frame squeaked underneath her as her heavy form plopped down on it, and with that simple rest, it felt like the weight had increased, all lightness of having the armor off gone. The mattress sagged under her weight as her feet swung up and onto the bed, her head coming down to rest on the pillow. Her hands came to rest on her stomach, interlacing fingers as she lost herself to her thoughts again.

_Comfortable?_

Her guest was back, and she frowned at it. She didn't deign to reply, and it seemed to catch the hint. Kat was never one to give up so easily, and Morgan listened, waiting, but nothing ever came. Why was she hearing Kat again? She had heard the woman's voice under Crow's Nest, when the building had come down around her, the voice calling out as if trying to wake her up. It had been put out of her mind at the time, little more than an unconscious dream brought on by the fall. But now, she was coming back. Whether it was to haunt her or to watch her back, Morgan didn't know.

Years separated their meetings. Morgan had been ripped away from Beta Company to be little more than a hitman for ONI, and Kat had been shuffled off to Noble. They had both gotten along with other Spartans in their company. That was a given. They were all on the same side, all family, bonded by shared circumstances, but they had always been closest to each other. Even when she had first deployed to Reach on assignment to Noble, they had all been wary of her but Kat.

She remembered the circumstances behind her predecessor's death, and how Kat had blamed herself for it. Carter had as well, but given Kat's planning of the mission, it had hit her hard. Still, she was more than happy to see her sister's return, and shared none of the hesitance that all but Carter had displayed around her. She remembered that first meeting being one of the few times near the end that Kat had smiled with nothing but sincerity, and not at a dark joke or mention of their impending deaths.

It left a hole in her heart, just thinking about it, but that was all she had of them anymore. The memories, bittersweet though they were, would be something she carried with her to the grave.

Morgan let her eyes bore holes into the ceiling, foot idly tapping against its counterpart as she counted the seconds. The smell of the room was wafting into her nose, sterilized steel mixed with her own scent from earlier and even now, barely different but noticeable enough. Sitting there, with only herself and Kat's ghost for company, she waited. Either the war would be over in a few days time and she could move on with whatever life she had left to live, or Kat would be facing her rather than haunting her.

With a mind not meant for these choices, Morgan weighed the chances, and decided that she didn't know which one she wanted more.


	8. To War

" _We have reason to believe Spartan personnel during the war suffered heavily from PTSD and mental fatigue. Raised to be soldiers from childhood, they suffered emotionally and mentally in that they were never taught how to deal with these issues, only to shove all of it into a little box in their heads, because they were never meant to live long enough for it to manifest as a problem. It worked well for them on the battlefield, but with no war for them to fight, I can't even imagine what the military is doing to heal them."_

_\- Jennifer Hall, Psychologist, August 2553, documentary segment on Spartans: "Humanity's Last Line"_

* * *

Three hours of staring at the ceiling had done nothing to calm Morgan's nerves, and sleep had been more than reluctant to come to her. The hamster that ran on the wheel in her mind had finally taken a break, thankfully, and it seemed Kat had joined him. For once, her head was quiet, and she let herself focus on the sounds of the ship around her, the ever present hum of machinery acting as the ship's beating heart.

She rolled onto her side, the mattress for her bed feeling too soft, like it would swallow her if she let her guard down for a moment, and her eyes rested on the fresh set of armor she had left standing in the corner, waiting patiently for when it would be used again.

Green eyes narrowed, and her lips quirked down as a frown started to form. Would the armor survive the fight this time? Would she survive it? There was no telling how difficult the fighting would get, or worse, if she never got to fight at all. Would they be spaced in a battle they were sure to lose? Surely the former Covenant ships the Sangheili had brought along would give the UNSC a massive edge, but they could be outnumbered heavily. What would three frigates do that an assault carrier couldn't?

She sighed, rolling onto her back and pinching at the corners of her eyes. Thinking about what ifs wouldn't do anything for her except make the hands on the clock tick by slower, halt the sand in the hourglass.

She hated being stuck on ships. There was nothing she could do to influence how things played out. If the ship got holed, all she could do was move to another section and hope she didn't get sucked out into the void. More than one Spartan had fallen victim to the cruel environment, suffocating or freezing, unable to save themselves. She shuddered. Just the thought of it, slowly drifting until everything went dark. She'd sooner put a bullet in her head and be done with it. When they went through the portal, there was no coming back. For all she knew, it was a one way trip even if they won.

A knock came at the door, and Morgan's frown grew. She sat up on the bed, straightening her fatigues with a passing hand, before she barked. "Enter!"

The door to her quarters slid open, revealing the permanently tired features of one Captain Adam Greer. Brown hair cut almost to the scalp was enough to show the widow's peak against tanned skin. The black fatigues were filled well, and the pyramid-eye of the Office of Naval Intelligence was staring at her from where he stood. The eagle insignia of a Captain perched on his collar, glinting in the overhead lights. "Lieutenant Commander."

"Captain, sir." She stood, her hand coming up to salute him, and it was returned before he waved her back down to where she had been sitting.

"You did well today, despite everything that happened. Things went pear shaped faster than we could respond."

Morgan merely shrugged, green eyes locked onto his own as he took a seat at the desk in the corner. "Make the impossible possible and all that, or die trying."

Greer's eyes narrowed, and he hummed to himself. "Be that as it may, I don't need you, or the Master Chief getting killed during whatever this brings us. You've both become the face of the Spartan presence in the war, and you know as well as I do you're both the best of your kind. Marines seeing a Spartan go down on the field will either fight harder… or they'll break, and I don't trust flipping the coin on that. The order is still in place to mark you both as MIA, but some are bound to realize what happens if either of you drop and disappear from the battlefield."

"You don't have to tell me twice. Do we have any idea of what's on the other side?"

Greer shook his head, his features hardening. "Negative. Sent multiple probes through, slipspace based and otherwise, and all of them cease transmitting anything back the instant they're through. Not even drawn out, it just ceases to exist."

"So we're flying blind?"

"Looks that way. Truth and his fleet went in with no hesitation. Came all the way here and instead of wiping us out on our homeworld, they packed up and left. What's more important than that?"

"Firing the rings and killing us all that way."

Greer's mouth twisted into a frown, his eyes narrowing. "Maybe. What do you think?"

"About what, sir?"

"Cortana."

It was Morgan's turn to frown, and she crossed her arms as she felt the familiar tug of facial scars pulling and tugging against the muscles underneath. "She got me through the last Halo enough that I trust her… but I'm not ignoring the fact I left her on a hive full of Flood that could have corrupted her. The problem is that we don't have any other options. The Elite commander said something about this just being a small contamination, and what do we have to show for it? Years of nightmares and who knows how many miles of glass on Africa." She uncrossed her arms, holding them out at her side. "I'll fight, like I always have. It's all I know."

Greer sighed, leaning forward and planting his elbows on his knees to hold himself up, looking all the more tired for it. "I know, but what do you think that means for us? We either stay here and _hope_ we don't come into contact with more of the damn things, give up any chance of stopping whatever Truth is setting in motion, or we go through and possibly get beaten back anyway."

"What do you think, Captain? You're Naval Intelligence, you've got the strings in your hands. ONI doesn't just _give up_ , and you know that far better than I do."

Greer set his eyes on her, narrowing as if he was trying to focus hard enough to stare holes in her. "What I _think_ , Commander, is that we're stuck between a rock and a cliff. There is no hard place for us anymore. We push back and win, or we go over the edge and everything will have been for _nothing_."

Morgan pursed her lips slightly, the hard, narrow line of her mouth looking like it had been drawn on with a pen. "So why tell me all of this? I'm just another Spartan to throw into the meat grinder."

It was Greer's turn to cross his arms, and he sat back in the chair, making it squeak in protest. "You've got the rank. Noble One was a Commander, and Noble Two was a Lieutenant Commander. Notes attached to Noble by one Colonel Urban Holland said that he believed higher ranks allowed you the authority to make on site calls in a hostile environment without being second guessed by commanders far from the wire. Spartans are the best of the best, and if we can't trust you to hold the line or break through, who can we trust?"

"That still doesn't explain it."

He frowned, a sigh escaping from his nose. "Because there are too few officers as it is. Hood is staying behind, and our only force that we're sending through this one way trip to Hell is lead by an LC not even 30 years old and accused of nepotism more than once. You've seen more battlefields than anybody else being sent out except for the Master Chief himself, and he's always followed orders. You, on the other hand, are different."

"Different how?"

"You've operated for so long without true oversight that you're trusted to make the calls, not just take them. You've gotten yourself out of more scrapes than I'm sure you can remember. If anybody is going to lead these marines and sailors through the other side still breathing, command seems to think it's you."

"And you, Captain Greer? You outrank both of us, you're ONI."

"That's exactly why I'm not doing it. A team of ONI operatives is embarked on the _Autumn_ , geared in the best we could scrounge up, and they're prepared for extended deep recon, just like you were told to do so long ago, but now you're a force multiplier. We can handle ourselves, but the weight of everything is on your shoulders now."

Morgan's lips curled into a frown, and she stifled the urge to pat at the tugging her scars did. "So, what, you run off on your own with a bunch of other spooks and find what we need?"

"That's about the gist of it."

Her frown deepened, and she stared at him for several seconds, the two locking eyes and holding it. She finally spoke up what seemed like an eternity later. "If you think that's the best way to do the job, I can't tell you no."

"No, you can't, but you needed to know. Only Keyes and the rest of that team know about their role. Keyes said to add you into the loop as the other command presence on the mission. Anything you need to know will be relayed through her. She'll give you more details, but we leave sooner rather than later and I figured it would be best to let you in ahead of time."

He remained sitting, not getting up yet, but Morgan suspected something else. "I get the feeling you've got more to say."

Greer, for the first time, gave her a smile. It was shallow, dark, more like a smirk, but she knew that jaded look. "You'd be correct. We'll make a spook out of you yet, Morgan."

His use of her name for the first time threw her off, and her eyes narrowed, but she was still more than fast enough to recognize what he pulled from his pocket and threw at her.

She snatched it out of the air, feeling cool metal in her hand, and she opened it to look at what it was. The dog tags for Emile-A239 and Jorge-052 sat together on a single chain, bearing the dust, grime, and debris that had been on them when they had died. Emile's tags were stained with blood both violet and red, dried and caked on the raised stamps in the metal that detailed them. Jorge's were cleaner, the big man more inclined to hang back and rely on his heavy machine gun, but they were dirty nonetheless, dust covering the letters from the plains at Viery.

Green eyes went over every detail, before looking back up at Greer. He held his hand up, stalling her from saying anything else. "Those are for you. I kept them on me, originally meant to turn them in at HIGHCOM in Sydney, but plans changed. Figured you might want to carry them into battle with you. Someone has to watch your back, after all."

He stood from the chair, looking into her eyes once more before he broke the contact and went to the door. It slid open with a quiet hiss, and he stepped through, before looking back at her. "Good luck, Morgan."

She stood from the bed, dog tags clenched in her hand as she called out once more. "Captain." He had turned away, but her call had him look back at her over his shoulder. "Don't die out there."

Greer's stony features broke apart into a more genuine smile, showing a hint of bone white teeth, before he turned fully away again, and the door sealed him away from her.

Morgan let her eyes rest on the door for several seconds, each one stretching out until her legs put her back on the bed, and her eyes broke from it to find the tags clenched in her hand. They were already warming under her touch, and she let her thumbs pass over the raised letters and numbers of her brothers. One an older sibling, and the other a cousin but no less a member of the family she had formed, ripped away from her by circumstance and sheer shitty luck.

Now, sitting there, and memorizing the ridges of both tags, she felt that sense of loss hit her again. It started off as that same pit in her gut, heavy like lead, before growing into a feeling of emptiness. When they had died, they had taken more than just the Covenant with them.

They had taken a part of Morgan too.

She hadn't known them for very long, only a month, but after years alone and being seen as nothing more than another gun to aim at enemies alien or otherwise, she had grown used to the Spartans of Noble. She had become more than just another Lone Wolf, changing her tactics and her behavior, and for the first time in many years, she had become part of a team again. She had grown _comfortable_.

Then it had all been ripped away like a bandaid that had been put over a fresh wound. Her hand came to her chest, feeling the still slightly blistered skin, and winced at the touch. Nothing would ever hurt as much as a return to the isolation. Marines had befriended her, and another Spartan was onboard, but there would always be the gap, the disconnect, because they weren't her team, her family.

Green eyes read the letters off on Jorge's name tag. It was little more than her own. A name and a number. Everything else had been censored as a grouping of X's, save for his blood type. Another was on board this ship that she knew would want them, and she debated on it, on offering the tags of the fallen to their next of kin. She had tried once before to give Jorge's tags to someone.

Emile, ever standoffish, had told her to keep them, that he had given the tags to her. Emile said he would honor the big man his own way, and in the end, he had done just that.

A sigh. She took her dog tags from around her neck, opening the link in the thin chain and sliding it through the hole of Emile's tag, letting it slide down and clink against her own several times before coming to rest.

Morgan frowned as she closed it up and slid the chain around her neck once more, the edges of Jorge's tag biting against her skin even when she was barely holding it. Standing, she pushed off of the bed and went for the door.

* * *

The armory of the _Forward Unto Dawn_ was clear of the Marines that had inhabited it earlier, all of the boxes of ammunition and weapons categorized and sorted appropriately, accounted for and stowed for the impending transit they would go through.

Two remained, however. The Master Gunnery Sergeant that had been roped into armoring and arming the Spartans, and the person that had become known as _The_ Spartan.

The armor he wore was the same dark green stock armor, little changed save for calibrations and software updates. The golden visor turned around to face her, as did the eyes of the Master Gunnery Sergeant. He put his hands on his hips, looking as if he was about to say something about her showing up without armor once more, but he seemed to think better of it as he saw the thin line Morgan's mouth had made. She played and joked with him, but something told him she wasn't in the mood for it.

Silence surrounded the three, and eventually he seemed to read the room well enough to realize he wasn't meant to be there anymore. "I'll leave you two to sort things out you need," he answered, stepping out of the armory without another word.

Now, alone, the two Spartans stared each other down. One clad in the heavy Mjolnir armor, the other clad only in the armor she had made around herself over the years and thin fatigues.

The Master Chief was the first to break the silence. "Lieutenant Commander, ma'am."

She realized that she didn't much care for the rank or the authority it provided. She had always been more comfortable taking the orders, not giving them. Even on Reach, she had deferred to Jorge, Jun, and Emile, despite all of them being lower ranked than her. It had never been a problem.

Now, under the eyes of a Spartan doing the opposite, she nodded to him. "Master Chief."

The silence stretched on until he broke it again. "Can I help you, Commander?"

"Please, call me Six, Chief."

"Yes, ma'am."

She frowned. He was stoic, stony, more so than Jorge had ever been, almost robotic in a sense. She felt an air of something come over the man, but she didn't have the words to put whatever it was into place in her mind. It spoke volumes of the man, however, telling her that he wasn't the type to engage in idle small talk like Marines, or even the Spartans of Noble.

So she changed tactics. Stepping closer towards the Master Chief, he barely moved, little more than a tilt of the head, and her hand was up in a closed fist, held out to him.

He stared at it, as if it wasn't really there, before he finally held his hand out to her. She put her hand in his and let her fingers uncurl from around the warm metal of the dog tag that belonged to Jorge-052.

The Master Chief watched as her hand pulled back, fell away, and he looked down at it, reading everything that was on it, however little. She had no doubt that he knew almost all of it, even if he was reading just X's.

The silence stretched on again, until finally, he looked back up at her. "Where did you get this?"

"I worked with him as part of a Spartan fireteam, during the Fall of Reach."

"Jorge was killed years ago."

Morgan's eyes narrowed. "Classified transfer then. He was shifted to an Army special warfare group made up of Spartan IIIs. I got transferred in myself right before the Fall."

The Master Chief was quiet for a few moments. "How did he go out?"

A frown came over her face, one that was barely noticeable, but she had no doubt the Master Chief had seen it. "We had to jury rig a bomb, find a way to get it on a Covenant super carrier. That bomb came in the form of a weaponized slipspace drive. We made it, got it onboard and held it long enough to prepare it, then plan B came into effect. Bomb's timer was fried and the Pelican it came in on wasn't making it out. His armor hadn't been equipped with a reentry pack so… he volunteered to stay, detonate it manually. He gave his life thinking he'd just saved the planet, and even while I was falling back to Reach… I saw dozens of ships jump in."

The other Spartan looked back down at the tags in his hand, and he flipped it over, doing as she had and taking in every little detail, from the dust and grime to the way the letters had been stamped.

Morgan stood and watched for several seconds, before she finally turned and went to leave, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. The Master Chief had closed the distance between them without a sound, startling her. Nothing snuck up on her that easily.

His hand came out, grabbing hers, and he put the tag back in her hand. The golden visor was impassive as she looked back at him. "I buried Jorge years ago, when I got the call saying he was gone. He gave this to you. I'll-"

"You'll honor him your own way?" She finished it for him, and he nodded. "Someone else said that about him once, and they made good on those words. I know you will too."

Morgan clenched the tag in her hand, closing her fingers around it, and turned to go, leaving the Master Chief alone in the armory.

* * *

The halls were empty for the most part, the majority of the crew onloading gear or stowing whatever was left for the trip. Locking the frigates down inside the carrier meant that they were flying everything by the seat of their pants, having never been in a situation like this.

Morgan's tall, muscled frame stretched at the large fatigues she wore, the material skin-tight against her. She had grown used to the tightness, being in a vacuum sealed suit that had become a second skin. It was almost comforting, the embrace of her clothing and gear. It told her that if all else failed, she would have at least something between her and the enemy.

But now, she was with the enemy and not trying to kill them. The enemy had become allies, if only by circumstance, and the war was drawing to a rapid close that was hurtling towards her faster than ever before, but it felt like time only seemed to stretch on endlessly, the end going away from her and leading off into the darkness with the light that would release her from all of it.

Her mind was filled with thoughts that had no place being there. She pushed them back into the box they belonged in, but that box only had so much room for someone that had been given hours to sit and wait, something she had never been good at. Morgan had always been the type to grab the bull by the horns, to charge in and shoot first, ask questions never. Of course, she had never even considered that the war would end any time soon, much less that she'd live to see it. Circumstance had been the deciding factor in her life as of late, and she hated it.

She needed the claustrophobic confines of her armor, to seal her away from all of this and let her be where she was most comfortable. With a passing thought, she realized that was likely why the Master Chief had yet to even take his helmet off, much less the rest of his armor. He had been in Mjolnir longer than she'd been alive, if Jorge was an indicator of anything, but more and more she realized she couldn't compare the two. Jorge had changed during his time with Noble, and he was likely just fundamentally different from the Master Chief, despite the upbringing they shared.

She frowned again and stopped walking, her hand clutching at the tag she had yet to put on her chain, where it seemed to belong. Looking down at it, she turned it over in her hand, musing over it. She needed to stop trying to compare them, to stop trying to look at the Master Chief through a lens that only Jorge was meant to be seen through. She realized that she missed Noble more than her subconscious led her on to believer, and if Kat's haunting of her was anything to go off of, she had grown far too close to them. Even growing up with others, with Kat herself, she had grown so accustomed to being alone that a month with Noble Team had changed her fundamentally, undone years of isolation and a mechanical life devoid of anything more than the next mission.

Her thought derailed itself when she realized her lip was trembling, her hand trembling just enough to notice, and to distort the words she was trying to read on the tag. Morgan stopped herself immediately, both tremors coming to an end and leaving her to relax, before it started up again.

It scared her.

If only thoughts of her old team were enough to bring this on, what did it mean? Would it get worse? Better? Was she going crazy from the high stress life she lived? She didn't know, and she doubted she ever would. Years of therapy were needed to untangle the mess of trauma that was scattered across the years, but Spartans didn't get enough down time to properly deal with it. PTSD had been used more than once in reports she had read, but nothing ever came from it. Nothing meaningful, at least.

_I thought I saw a few loose screws in here…_

Damn it. Morgan frowned as Kat's voice echoed in her mind. "Don't go poking around where you're not supposed to, Kat."

"I won't."

Morgan spun around, nearly breaking her neck with the speed she whipped her head around to see where Kat's voice had come from, but only the empty hall remained, staring back at her. Kat was nowhere to be seen, but she swore that she had heard the other woman right behind her.

_Looking for something?_

It was back in her head, back bouncing off of the walls of her skull. Morgan's frown only deepened further, nearly a scowl. She had missed the other woman dearly, never allowed to properly grieve her passing, but Kat being a nuisance wasn't exactly endearing her ghost to the last Noble.

"You know, you were funnier when you were alive."

There was no response, Kat seeming to have preferred to go back into hiding, ready to come back out whenever Morgan was least expecting her. "Damn you, Kat..."

"Come again?"

Her mutter had been answered, and she swung around again, rounding on the figure of a Marine in front of her, wearing the flight suit and light armor of a UNSC pilot. 'Hocus' was written in big bold letters across the right chest of the flight suit, and the woman that it covered raised an eyebrow as her deep drawl sounded. Quickly, she slipped Jorge's tag into her fatigue pocket.

"You alright, ma'am?"

Morgan's eyes locked onto the other woman's, and her frown tightened into a thin line across her face. "I'm fine. No problems."

The look Hocus gave her spelled out disbelief, the pilot not in the least convinced, but she didn't push it. It wasn't her place. "O-kay," she said, drawing the o sound out. "I was just coming to find you. Wanted to know if you wanna grab some grub before they pack away the kitchens."

Morgan nearly said no, her mouth opening and forming the shape that it needed to make the sound, but it didn't come out. She looked like a fish out of water, hesitating. "I'll join you."

Hocus smiled, looking pleased. "Good! I'll have to wait on the drink, but I got to see what's under the helmet, at least."

Morgan felt some of the tension drain away, ready to come back some other time. "If you didn't know what I looked like, how did you know it was me?"

She snorted, gesturing for Morgan to follow her as the two started walking. "You're the only woman your height on the ship, likely in the entire Corps, and you're basically the Hulk. 'Sides, if there were more of you, I'd just keep asking around. Knew I'd find you eventually."

"You seem awfully confident in thinking you'd find me if I didn't want to be found."

Hocus hummed. "Maybe so, but this close to jump off, I knew you'd be doing something or another to get ready. Either in your quarters, an armory, or the bridge, and I was on my way to the closest armory first. Saw your friend in there. He's not real talkative, is he?"

"The Master Chief?"

"Mhm."

"I don't think so. Then again, nothing to really talk about."

"Nothing at all?"

She shrugged. "Nothing important." A lie, given that she had just brought something important up with the

Hocus frowned. "Y'know, here I thought you two would be gossiping like two birds in the morning but I guess not."

Now it was Morgan's turn to snort, a chuckle making its way up her throat. "You think too highly of us, Hocus."

"I love to flatter, ma'am."

The Spartan knew those thoughts would be back sooner or later, finding the key every time she changed the locks on that box of hers, but it was easy to push it all back inside and lock it up.

Hocus chattered on about this and that on the way to the mess area, with Morgan barely responding, content to listen to the other woman drone on. It was better hearing the pilot's words than the sound of her own voice in her mind.

The mess hall doors opened before them, with Morgan taking a seat at one of the tables in the corner. Hocus called out to her, pointing at the food that sat waiting to be eaten, but Morgan only waved and shook her head. No more for her. Not yet.

When Hocus sat back down, a tray full of food in hand, she went to work both on it and the Spartan sitting in front of her. The sound of a fork scraping across plastic trays grated on Six's ears, but it lowered in volume as she got used to it, frowning nonetheless.

"So, no idea what's going on with the higher ups, but they said to be ready just in case for the transition. Orders from Flight Ops said Alert Five is standard until we go through the portal, that either it'll be quick and we'll be ready to launch immediately, or we stand down an hour or two later. What do you think is gonna happen?"

Morgan's frown deepened. "I don't know what I think. Slipspace portals aren't exactly something I'm interested in experimenting with."

Hocus shoved another fork full of food into her mouth, her cheek bulging as she pushed the food over and tried to talk through it. "I don't think any of us are, but it can't be helped now. What about the squids? They've got a whole fleet and we're working with… scraps."

"The Elites are our allies. I don't see them causing trouble for us now, if they went so far as to ally with us. They've spent 27 years trying to put us in the ground, and they've always gloated about honor this, honor that. They wouldn't try to pull the wool over our eyes this late."

"Maybe you're right, but still… I don't trust it."

"None of us really do, but we don't have much choice. Besides, the Arbiter seems to hold a lot of sway over them, and he was the first one I saw when I got back. He was pretty pissed about the whole thing, judging by how he's been fighting, but I haven't seen him much since Crow's Nest blew."

Hocus's frown grew to match Morgan's own as she slowly chewed and then swallowed. "If you say so. I trust you, Commander."

Morgan gave her a shallow smile, one that didn't quite reach her eyes. She was being logical, but she knew that it sounded less than convincing. "I appreciate it."

"That brings another thing to mind, though. The real reason I was looking for you." Setting her fork down with a gentle scrape as the two plastic materials made contact, she made sure her mouth was clear. "Command said you'll be flying escort for us as soon as we jump in. They want you running alert with us, so I need to make sure you're up to speed. Problem is, they brought out something they're calling a prototype. Bleeding edge."

Morgan's left eyebrow crept up her face, a dark shape contrasting heavily with her pale skin and tugging at a shallow scar, something that Hocus caught sight of but quickly brought her eyes back to the other woman's. "They want me flying? It's been a while since I was put behind a stick." A lie. Only a few months, or weeks to her, had passed since she'd been in control of a Sabre during UPPERCUT. Since she lost Jorge. The feeling of the last remnant she had of him weighed a hundred pounds in her pocket, and she slipped her hand into it to hold it once more under the table.

"Command said you'd be up for it, that it's pretty close to what you've had experience with in the past. What was it?"

Her response was quick. "Classified, Hocus."

The other woman sucked her teeth, tsking at the response. "Damned clearance levels. Fine. I'll let you gear up and meet you in the hangar. Sound good to you?"

Morgan nodded slowly, pulling her hand back out and standing from the bench. "Aye. I'll meet you in 20. Thanks for lunch."

Hocus snorted. "You can take me next time. I'll be waiting, ma'am."

With that, Morgan bid the pilot farewell as she took her tray to the counter, the Spartan slipping out while she could and making best time to her quarters. Her armor sat waiting inside, ready for whatever was next to come.

She stopped in front of it, looking directly into the face plate and seeing her reflection staring back at her. Her eyes locked onto those that her reflection owned. She had a feeling of deja vu, of seeing this before, but she couldn't quite place it. She had been given more augmentations after CHRYSANTHEUM, told she'd be getting better armor, being deployed alone.

Her hand reached out to brush against the chest plate, feeling the smooth, cold metal beneath her finger tips. S-312 was etched into the right collar, where the bolts met the rear armor segment, and her fingers traced the letters as if trying to commit them to memory, when they were already burned into it.

Looking back into the face plate, she tucked a few errant strands of dark black hair behind her ear, frowning, and undid the tight bun that it was in. It fell to the base of her neck, on line with her chin and jaw, and she pulled it back into another savage bun. She needed to cut it off, get rid of the whole factor like Kat had done, but she didn't want to.

There was little more to do besides suit up now, and she didn't want to keep Hocus waiting. Slipping out of her fatigues, she set them on her bed. She went for the armor, but something told her to stop, and her eyes were drawn to the fatigues again, or more specifically, the dog tag still hidden inside one of the pockets. She bit the inside of her cheek but grabbed them and rummaged through the pockets to pull it out, sliding it onto the tag on the opposite side from Emile's, her own sandwiched between them.

Satisfied, she turned back to the armor and started the process of getting it on. 15 minutes later, she was fully armored, once again clad in the heavy armor of Mjolnir, the gel layer undersuit clinging to her with that same, cloying feel of safety. Something was different about it. There was a feeling in the back of her mind, one that told her to be careful, to not trust her armor as she always had. There was no reason not to, but her instincts had never lied to her before, and she had long ago learned to trust that gut feeling.

Closed away from the world, she left her quarters, filling the halls despite being wide enough for her to walk abreast of herself three times over. Marines and other sailors ran into her, but none said a word, all going quiet at first sight of her.

She paid them no mind. It didn't matter if they continued their conversations or if they gawked at her. She had grown used to both throughout the years, and she had more pressing things to worry about as a very busy hangar opened up in front of her, metal bulkheads sliding apart and letting a torrent of noise in.

Mechanics were hard at work making sure everything was up to snuff. Fuel lines snaked across the decking and bomb trucks were scurrying about with ammunition loads to fill Pelicans, Longswords, Shortswords, and more with their weapons and payloads. All of it was familiar to her.

All but one.

An angular fighter sat on the deck, two wide wings protruding from the rear and massive intakes sat at the edges of the wings. Twin vertical stabilizers crept up from the wing roots at a tilt, and a pair of nasty looking autocannons flanked the cockpit. Two launch bays closer to the wing roots, tucked into a hollow area where the wings split to support the intakes were being loaded with what could only be SAIM-400 Medusa Missiles. Internals were exposed through removed paneling, showing the launch racks already half full with more of the missiles, and two carts were loading hundreds of rounds into the ammunition storage bins for the 30mm cannons.

Morgan was surprised. They had actually gotten a Sabre onto the _Dawn_ just for her, it seemed. Everybody else who could pilot them was likely dead or far away, so of course she'd be left to it. Question was, how had they gotten one? In the end, it didn't really matter. She knew the bird, and she knew it would do her well.

Hocus stood on the right side, talking animatedly with one of the crew chiefs. She spotted the Spartan and turned back to the crew chief, a slicing motion ending the conversation. Had the hangar been less noisy, she could have picked the words out, but it was over a moment later.

Stepping up to Hocus, the other woman put her hands on her hips. "Just what did you do to get yourself something like this? Chief says most of his men have never even seen one of these, and the rest only know the shared parts with other craft. Rest of it is a black box to them."

Morgan tilted her head. "Classified."

Hocus only rolled her eyes. "Is that true or just an excuse?"

It was an excuse. Morgan didn't want to have to explain it all, not when she barely knew how it worked anyway. It was easier like this. Neither of them could do mechanical work anyway. She made a point to send a message to Keyes through the ship's intranet to release the rest of the Sabre documents prior to jump off, having her armor send it with a few blinks and chin taps. Even if Keyes couldn't, Greer could.

"It's a surprise." Morgan stepped past Hocus, the tanned woman frowning. She ran her armored fingers across the steel gray hull, as if trying to find any issues through touch alone. The cockpit hung up, hinged at the rear of the cockpit glass. Inside, a pair of seats sat resting on a roller mechanism. When she got in and closed the canopy, it would slide the two seats forward to the front of the cockpit pod. The rear seat acted as a RIO interface, allowing a second pilot to handle all weapons and sensors and permit the pilot to focus solely on flying. She had always flown alone, save for once. Jorge had been her last RIO, if only for a short time, and he had been more along for the ride than anything.

She looked back to Hocus. "I think I'll be able to get used to it without too many problems, but if you wanna get me integrated into your net, I'll wait."

Hocus shrugged, more than willing to trust the Spartan at this point. They had never done anything to jeopardize the mission before, why start now? "If you say so, ma'am. I'll have you connected soon. You're still plugged in to external power, so you'll get my ring ricky tick."

Morgan nodded, turning away as Hocus left her on her own. Grabbing the first recessed handhold in the Sabre's hull, her fingers fit perfectly, and she hauled herself up to the next one, and then the cockpit lip was under her fingers. The heavy Mjolnir didn't even budge the massive fighter, and she slipped into it like it was just another suit of armor.

The pilot's seat deformed well under her, matching all of the shapes of her body and armor, and she left the canopy up, pulling up on a small handle on the left side of the seat. It rolled forward to the console, a single red light blinking in the center.

Flipping a few switches and pressing a series of buttons, the consoles came alive, multiple screens flashing and showing sensor outputs and ship diagnostics. One remained dark, the radar being left off to prevent frying anybody that was too close. Comms powered up and connected to her suit automatically, no channels selected or squawking at her yet.

She went through the motions, making sure everything worked. It was like riding a bike, a very heavily armed bike capable of spaceflight. It was almost comforting, and she took a few moments to sink back into the seat, golden visor reflecting the consoles in front of her and to the sides as she let her fingers gently wrap around the flight stick and the throttle. It was that familiar sense of comfort that she never gave words to. Like being held for the first time in a long time.

But she didn't quite remember that feeling, only that it felt fuzzy, warm, something to strive for.

A series of chirps sounded, breaking her out of her reverie and bringing her back to the world. A comms hail was inbound, and she accepted it quickly. The canopy lit up in front of her, the clear material that made up the HUD showing numerous readings and other bits of data needed in the heat of combat. Hocus' callsign appeared in the right of the HUD, her name underlined by a changing audio bar that bounced and jumped with every word.

"You're connected to our battle net now, Commander. Callsign assigned is Noble, no numbers. Flight roster says you're escorting me and mine – Sierra – with a couple of the new model of Broadswords, callsign Ranger. You're with them but you've got command authority if you need it. Commanding is Lieutenant Marcus Gibson. Good pilot, plenty of experience, so don't worry about him being green. Ranger and Sierra are first rotation on Alert Five, 30 minutes on, hour off. So unless you need to grab anything, might wanna get comfortable."

"I copy all, Hocus. I've got your back. Noble out."

Cutting the channel, Morgan slid the seat back, but left the electronics on. She wouldn't be gone long, and made sure to let the crew chief servicing the craft know. He gave her a thumbs up over the increasing engine noise filling the hangar from fighters and bombers being tested left and right. The Sabre would be next.

Leaving the hangar behind, Morgan made her way back to the armory she had seen several times already, finally completely empty. She went straight for the weapons rack, grabbing a BR-55HB Battle Rifle and slotting it against her back, where it latched on with no problems, filling her ammunition pouches with as much ammo as she could. With a full combat load, she would be more than ready for an extended fight if it came down to it.

Dozens of boxes of the chalky protein bars were already waiting for Marines to gear up and latch onto them before deployment, and she dedicated a pair of pouches to them. Water supplies were full and fresh, and oxygen tanks were showing no problems. Her armor was ready to go, and so was she, but she made sure to check everything completely. With one thing left to do, she initiated the shield discharge test.

The golden lattice around her shattered, the HUD turning red around the edges and alarms blaring in her ears for several seconds before the low warble of the shield recharging replaced them, emitting a single high pitched beep as it completely filled again. Satisfied, she was ready.

The trip back to the Sabre was short, more and more Marines and Sailors flooding the halls to get ready for jump off, only half an hour away from now. She wasn't stopped by any of them, nothing to be said between people rushing for their last preparations and checks.

Morgan stepped through the open bulkhead into the hangar once again, her Sabre filling her gaze as she locked her eyes onto it. The paneling that lined the sides and hid the missile racks away had been reinstalled, and the multitude of cabling had all been pulled away save for the power cable that was still hooked in through the ship's auxiliary power unit and a final fuel line that was feeding fuel into the massive tanks hidden away in the midsection.

The climb into the cockpit was the same as before. Pulling the battle rifle from her back, she slipped it into a rack on the right side of the cockpit, hearing the satisfying click as it was clamped into place. It wouldn't be going anywhere now.

Something new was in the cockpit, an M-Spec Reentry Pack had been slotted into the backrest of the seat while she was gone, and maneuvering herself into place, it locked onto the back of her armor with another click, several bolts tightening the fit before a notification on her HUD pinged, showing that she was ready and the pack was engaged. Now, if she needed to bail out or drop out of orbit, it would make sure she survived reentry.

Above her, the cockpit closed on itself, sealing the interior away from all of the noise and pandemonium. Marines were filling the hangar bay now, all of them loaded for bear and ready to go, squad leaders and other technicians directing the groups to the appropriate Pelicans.

All of them were covered in the shadow of the green giant following close behind them. The Master Chief, an MA5C assault rifle slung across his back and an SRS99D Sniper Rifle held across his chest by two heavily armored hands, waded into the throngs of Marines, stepping into the open rear bay door of the Pelican just in front of her, 'Hocus Pocus' being stenciled across the left side of the troop bay next to the landing gear strut recess.

She watched as the Master Chief slid the rifle into an overhead storage rack and sat down in one of the seats, his armor giving away nothing about what he was thinking or even his facial expression. He was waiting, just like the rest of them.

The flood of Marines slowed down until it had thinned out to nothing, and one more figure came through, a cigar clenched tightly between white teeth. Sergeant Major Avery Johnson was deploying again, never one to miss the fight as he ducked into the bay of Hocus Pocus, stopping and exchanging a few words with the Master Chief that she couldn't read.

Morgan frowned slightly, eyes narrowing as Johnson disappeared into the cockpit of Hocus Pocus. Was he Hocus's copilot? Why was he going out in a Pelican when he'd be more effective commanding?

She shook her head. It wouldn't do to start asking questions that she had no answers to, and she didn't plan on asking Johnson about it. Not yet, at least.

The minutes passed slowly, Morgan checking every system again and again, going through the motions in her head to make sure everything was going to work. Ten minutes before the jump, she put power to the engines, the intakes hissing loudly, like hot metal being quenched in water, before the confident rumble and roar of the engines filled her ears, lowering to an idle rumble.

More procedure, more waiting, more checking. She wasn't completely confident, given the situation, but it didn't matter. She shoved all of it into the back of her mind, like she always did, and she waited.

Her comms gear activated, an open channel being heard by every device in the UNSC combined force as the now familiar voice of Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood sounded in all of their ears.

" _The sun sets on the Earth, and I see the stars still shining in the sky. I'm sending all of you, our bravest and our best, into those stars, and I think to myself I may never see any of you again. All of you are journeying into the pitch dark of the unknown, with no moon or stars to guide you, and I pray deeply that you will use the light of your brothers and sisters in arms to light the way. Never give up, men and women of the UNSC, even when it seems like there is no other choice._ "

Hood's voice stopped for a moment, and Morgan swore she could hear him draw in breath. " _I have one order for all of you. Survive. Come back to us victorious. Win this, this one last fight. But most importantly..."_

The decking under the Sabre shuddered as the assault carrier fed power to its massive engines, angling up and into the portal as its nose began to disappear into the portal. " _Do not go gentle into that good night, my friends."_

The signal cut, and the world went dark as the light was sucked away, and Humanity's final effort was sucked into the long, dark night, and the chime of bells filled Morgan's head as Kat whispered once more into her ears, her Slavic accent rolling like a gentle hill as she spoke to her sister one more time.

_Rage, rage, against the dying of the light._


	9. The Ark

The bright lights of the _Shadow of Intent_ 's hangar bay kept the UNSC vessels bathed in white as the portal to The Ark tore away the world around them. Armored plates had slid down over the normally shielded bays, just in case something went wrong and rendered them useless or inert.

Inside the _Forward Unto Dawn_ , crewmen had finished securing craft active or otherwise, straps and chains holding everything in place before they all scurried to the safety of elevators and storage rooms. A dozen fighters and transports sat waiting, including the Sabre and a retrofitted heavy gunship that had been made from a gutted Pelican, twin machine gun turrets on the underside of each wing swiveling in an attempt to find a target.

The lighting in the _Dawn_ was just as bright, and it glared off of the canopy and console of the Sabre, reflections glinting off of Morgan's visor as she ran through the ship's systems.

Then something happened. The ship began to shudder, and a warning blared in the cockpit as the gyroscope warned of multiple sudden G's. The _Shadow of Intent_ had pushed completely into the portal, and it hadn't been gentle. The entire ship was shaking and outside of the armored hull of the _Dawn_ , held down at multiple points in the _Intent'_ s bay, everybody else was as well.

Morgan felt something come over her, almost like a sickness, as a wave of nausea flooded her mind. Her stomach twisted and turned, and a pressure behind her eyes started up. It felt like nails were being driven into her eyes and she reflexively reached to rub them, to put her hands against them until the pressure went away, but she stopped herself as she remembered her helmet.

She didn't dare to take it off now.

The shuddering worsened, and through the clear cockpit she saw several craft shaking against their restraints as her own Sabre started wobbling against the heavy chains looped through the landing gear struts and the hollow area of the wings. The Sabre warbled another warning that reached her ears, whining that it was being stressed until she silenced it with a shaky hand.

Her chin pressed against the button in her helmet, pulling up the HUD menu and switching through it to the armor's diagnostics systems, and the squad roster pulled up to show her vital signs were shaky. Not redlining, but not the calm bead that it usually showed. A warning sign next to it did little more for her than to remind her that she should be careful, and she rolled her eyes, despite the pain it brought.

The Master Chief's vitals showed as well, somewhat shaky, but far more contained than her own, and she frowned. He was probably faring better than she was through all of this.

The maneuvering thrusters on Hocus Pocus shifted and rotated as Hocus, sitting at the helm of the Pelican, manipulated the controls, likely to make sure they were working properly. That, or going through the automated diagnostics for the craft again. Morgan initiated her own and felt the ship's life fill it as the maneuvering thrusters at the rear of the Sabre flexed and shifted, widening and narrowing, and then forming nozzles to deflect the thrust one way or another to aid maneuvering. Small flaps and ailerons across the Sabre's wings followed suit, all of them working fine as she watched out of the three mirrors positioned across the upper rim of the cockpit at the frontal structural support.

Everything checked out alright, and Morgan let out a satisfied breath that at least something was going right, even as the urge to puke grew a little bit.

Then, thankfully, everything stopped abruptly. The shaking, the nausea, the biting pain behind her eyes, everything had stopped as quickly as it had begun. A chirp sounded and her cockpit's comms suite came to life.

" _Status report, everybody good?_ " The deep tones of Johnson sounded in her ears, and she heard multiple calls that went through all of Sierra flight.

" _Sierra 1-_ _1_ _, Hocus, all good."_

_"Sierra 2-1, Hammerfall, we're green."_

_"Sierra 3-1, Jericho, I'm green in the face but we're ready to go."_

" _Ranger flight, what about you?_ " Johnson called to the team of Broadswords that sat across the hangar bay, and Morgan looked over to see the pilots reaching across their cockpits and checking their systems.

" _Ranger 1, Caesar is locked."_

_"Ranger 2, Scoundrel is loaded."_

_"Ranger 3, Antares is ready to rock._ "

She could almost see Johnson shaking his head, despite the Pelican being turned in a way that she only saw the rear of the craft. " _You all ever gonna get rid of that corny ass sequence?_ "

" _You ever gonna stop with your corny ass flip music?_ " Ranger 1 replied, the deep voice of a black man filtering through even deeper than Johnson's.

Johnson snorted. " _Not on your life, Gibson. Noble? You asleep again?_ "

Morgan keyed into the conversation, flipping through each of her multiple systems as she powered the rest of them on, just short of firing the engines and taking off. "Ranger 4, Noble, tracking Sergeant Major."

" _Confirmed. All birds, arm weapons and wait. We'll be launching from the_ Dawn _as soon as she clears the hangar bay. Then we get dirty. Switch to squadron based channels, commanders keep contact and relay as needed. Sierra 1-2 out._ "

A chorus of clears went up as the pilots of Sierra and Ranger sounded, and then it all petered out with Six switching to the frequency Ranger would be using. She came on right as they started talking, having already known the drill. Joining the channel, three names appeared in the top left of her HUD, the callsigns of each pilot, and each grew brighter as the voices belonging to each pilot came across the channel.

The deep voice of Ranger 1, Caesar, was on the channel already. " _-Heard the man. We're gonna be in for it if anything is waiting for us. You all saw how many ships were around the artifact._ "

Scoundrel was next, a light chirp in comparison to Caesar's deep baritone. This one was a woman, and from the sound of her voice, she could have been a pixy. At least, her voice could have belonged to one. " _Outnumbered and outgunned somewhere far from home? We've had worse. I'm itching to get back into it_."

Antares came last, a silky smooth voice filtering into the air of Morgan's cockpit, the sultry accent of a man who spoke Old Italian sounding loud and clear. " _We aren't forgetting that we have a Spartan following us? You are comfortable, no, Noble?_ "

Morgan quirked an eyebrow. "It's not been long enough that I've forgotten how to walk, Antares."

" _I would hope not, Noble. I know that should I hear your beautiful voice too much, I may swoon and forget how to walk myself._ "

Scoundrel's reply was leaking exasperation. " _Damn it, we aren't even off the deck and you're turning on the charm._ "

Whatever else he planned to say was cut off as the woman in question answered before him. "It's no problem, Scoundrel. I hope he flies better than he flirts, though."

The deep laugh that came from Caesar, his signal lighting up, rang in her ears. " _Damn,_ _the scorpion just got stung_ _._ "

Morgan let herself smile slightly as Caesar and Scoundrel teased Antares, the Italian man keeping quiet as they went on. She ran through the weapons checks as they waited, and was pleased to see she had a full load of three dozen missiles, half in each wing mounted magazine, and an entire drum of ammunition for each thirty mil.

The weapons selector flipped between the two. When the missiles were selected, the racks for the missiles slid out from their hiding places behind the Sabre's heavy armor, and switching to guns put them away as the cannons were already exposed.

Something else was ready, however. Flipping a switch, the shielding emitters on the Sabre's hull powered on and hummed to life, a glimmering silver shield covering the hull before brightening as it pulled from the Sabre's beefy power plant, reaching full strength quickly.

The conversation between the rest of Ranger ceased, all of them having watched as their new pilot gave the Sabre shields. None of them had shields, and they all quietly wanted to know why as they watched her go through more checks in the cockpit of the Sabre, hidden behind lightly tinted glass.

She didn't deign to answer the unspoken questions, and deck crew swarmed the area to unsecure the ships from where they had been clamped down. That meant things were about ready to pop off. Wheel chocks were left in place, only to be taken out right before take off.

Things were quiet for several minutes, and then Caesar's voice filled the air waves again. " _We're deploying! Engines up!_ "

The pilots of Sierra and Ranger all started activating their powerful thrusters, the loud drone quickly deafening any other sounds in the hangar. The open bay doors of the _Forward_ _Unto Dawn_ showed several Phantoms, Seraphs, and Banshees lifting off in the glaring lights of the _Intent_ and rocket off to the side, out the now open bay doors.

The _Dawn_ rumbled and shook as they were detached from the _Intent_ , and the interior of the carrier started moving slowly before falling away, and being given an opening to see space outside. Looking past the rear of Hocus Pocus, the outside was something that all those onboard had never expected to see.

A colossal shape expanded out for thousands of miles in every direction beneath them, a massive steel octopus that could almost reach out and crush the lot of them in its arms. The top side was covered in rivers and oceans, jungles and swamps, tundras and deserts, all manner of environments hostile or otherwise to a Human. Then, in the distance, far beyond their reach, the Milky Way Galaxy was little more than a yellow-white swirl against a dark black background.

Morgan felt her breath catch in her throat as she realized just how far away they all were, and someone else voiced the words they were all thinking.

" _What in the hell…?_ " Caesar's deep tones hung in the air like smoke, and if his canopy hadn't tinted darker as the lights went up, she would have seen him gaping at the sight.

The comms suite chirped as another channel overlaid itself over the one used by Ranger, Commander Keyes' voice filling the air. " _All flights, prepare for launch. Escort craft stick close to the_ Dawn _until your charges have been launched. Hit the surface of whatever that is and secure a landing zone. We won't have much time. Commanders, Flight Ops has you now."_

Nobody responded, but Morgan felt the Sabre shudder again as a magnetic launching clamp grabbed the topside of her hull, pulling her off of the wheel chocks and into the air over an empty expanse, the hangar doors underneath having opened up and exposed the interior to a vacuum. In front of her, the rest of Ranger flight had been done the same way.

A new voice filled the squadron channel, calm and collected, and Morgan listened as a woman belonging to Flight Ops set them up. " _Dawn Flight Ops to Ranger, mission is to escort Sierra Flight to the surface of the object below, designation Ark. Call for more orders upon completion and you'll be retasked to the space battle. Over."_

Caesar was quick to respond, all business as whatever joviality he had disintegrated. " _Ranger copies, Flight Ops. Ready for deployment. Over."_

_"Releasing in three- two- one- launch. Flight Ops, out."_

The magnetic clamps that held the Sabre reversed their polarity and the four fighters were launched down and out of the _Dawn_ , four sets of boosters flaring brightly as they cleared the way and moved to either side of the _Dawn_ , getting their bearings before Sierra launched. The effects of artificial gravity disappeared and Morgan felt her stomach float in the eternal free fall of zero gravity, but she clamped down on the feeling, pushing it to the back of her mind like everything else.

In the distance, the silvery hulls of Covenant warships, looking like steel sharks swimming through the darkness of intergalactic space, oriented on the new fleet that had jumped in. Dozens of smaller lights, belonging to single ships like Banshees and Seraphs, lit up void as they closed with the Human-Sangheilli fleet.

The _Dawn_ did the opposite, pulling up and away from the Covenant Loyalists to hide behind the formidable bulk of the _Shadow of Intent_ , and the ships of Ranger Squadron followed closely.

Morgan watched as all of the allied Seraphs and Banshees rocketed off, ready to engage Loyalist forces like the Sangheilli always had towards the UNSC, and Phantoms and Spirits peeled off towards the Ark, expanding out beneath them.

" _Sierra is out, Ranger, glue up to them."_ Caesar's order was clear, and all the birds of Ranger rolled onto their backs and pulled up, diving for the installation below as the Pelicans of Sierra launched from the _Dawn._

The four fighters wasted no time in spreading out around Sierra, taking a wide formation. Morgan felt the effects of the maneuvers, but her armor was more than fine with being pressed into the flight seat. Not far off, enemy forces had been engaged, and inevitably some had slipped through. She keyed her mic, the rest of Ranger likely already alert. "We've got company, closing fast."

" _I see them, Noble. Stick close to Sierra, don't go too far. Scoundrel, cover."_

" _Aye sir."_

"Aye sir."

Morgan broke from the position on the right side of Sierra, the Sabre responding better than ever before, and the missile pods on either wing were open. Half a dozen enemy Banshees had gotten through, and her targeting software was already locking them up, several dull chirps sounding as each Banshee was acquired by the Sabre, before all six were covered in bright red diamonds accompanied by a solid buzz. Pulling the trigger, all six were the targets of Medusa missiles that came screaming out of their launch tubes faster than any craft in the battlespace could move.

Three of them were knocked out before they could evade, turning into little more than clouds of debris as some of the first souls to be snuffed out over the Ark. Another was clipped by a missile but still more than capable of fighting without problems, and the last two completely missed, drawing a frown from the Spartan.

Scoundrel was up next, but didn't use missiles. Instead, her Broadsword rocketed past, the twin 35mm autocannons in the nose locking onto targets and tracking them on their semi-articulated mounts. Golden tracer fire spewed from the cannons in a withering fusillade that tore chunks off of one Banshee, ripping it to shreds, before smacking into the other two enough to have them both turn back, trailing flames and leaking atmosphere. They were dead already, they just didn't know it yet.

" _Form back up, Noble. Tight leash."_

 _"_ Roger."

Morgan pulled the stick around and adjusted the throttle bar, pushing it forward and increasing speed as she formed up on Scoundrel's wing. Then she felt it. She was a well oiled machine again, working seamlessly with a new team, and that familiar feeling of having someone with eyes on your back when yours were on the front, it was intoxicating. She knew it wouldn't be for long, and as soon as the space battle was over they would be gone and she would be sent back to the ground, but she savored it for what it was.

The Pelicans of Sierra were in a tight formation, and the other half of Ranger kept a close eye on their charges. Morgan glanced down at her instruments, the light of several reds, greens, and blues reflecting off of her visor, and she saw something that even she couldn't react to in time, even with her enhanced reflexes.

Spartan time kicked in and the world slowed down to a crawl, and she realized the mistake both herself and Scoundrel had made. Her radar whined a warning, and her head swiveled as a Banshee, half torn apart and spewing plasma and flames, passed by between her and the Broadsword on her wing.

She pulled on the flight stick, trying to get guns on target, but it was already too late. Her crosshair passed over the Banshee at the precise moment that it slammed into one of the Pelicans, Sierra 2, and ripped the transport in half before both craft detonated in a shock that jostled the Sabre even at the distance she was at. Sierra 1 and Sierra 3 both went evasive, instincts taking over as one of their own were wiped out.

Hocus' voice filled Morgan's ears as she cursed her lack of situational awareness. " _Sierra 2 has been hit, Pelican down! Ranger, keep those damn things off of us! We can't go any faster or we risk burning up, atmosphere over that thing is getting too thick!_ "

" _Ranger copies. Open the formation, cover your sectors, confirm your kills. We can't lose another one._ "

All members of Ranger copied and the three Broadswords and their Sabre companion split up, opening up the distance between the Pelicans and themselves as more single ships pushed for the transports. At this distance, the pulse laser fire being thrown out in thick sheets was tapering off as the strike force dived further and further from the allied fleet.

Morgan frowned, the debris field left by Sierra 2 disappearing off of her left shoulder, a few corpses having survived the strike despite the Banshee's kamikaze attack hitting directly amidships. She didn't want to see that again.

" _Caesar, we've got a tail."_ Antares called out, and all of them saw the dozen or so blinks on the rear section of their radars, Seraphs mostly. They were shielded, and would take more punishment.

" _Caesar copies. Noble, you're with me. Scoundrel, you're Element 2-_ _1_ _, get the job done. We'll be with you again shortly._ "

" _Scoundrel copies_ "

"Noble copies."

Morgan pulled back on the stick, the Sabre bringing its nose up and over, before she rolled 180 degrees and moved to form up with Caesar. The Broadsword was sleek and curvy, and it was armed to the teeth. She continued making small adjustments to the stick, sliding in on his left wing. Every small movement, every nudge or twitch, it felt magnified to her. The re-entry pack that connected her armor to the seat did its best to keep her from being thrown around the cabin, but the smaller movements were impossible to stop in the zero G environment of the Sabre's cockpit.

In the distance, flares of light sparkled against the void, Seraphs hurtling towards them and their charge with nothing to block the way except for a pair of single ships. If any of them got past the two UNSC fighters, the rest of Ranger would have trouble keeping them at bay.

Pushing the thruster bar forward, the Sabre jumped, twin engines belching blue flame as the ion engines were fed more and more power, taking it in and pushing it out. The Seraphs were closing faster and faster, the distance evaporating as they accelerated. Several faded diamonds covered the enemy signatures on Morgan's HUD, none of them locked but all of them registering. Caesar, on her right, broke further in that direction, and she broke to the left, and the pincer opened up around the Covenant formation.

" _Work from the outside to the center, use their numbers against them, Noble."_

He didn't have to tell her twice, but she didn't deign to answer, because in a few seconds they would merge with the Seraphs, and then the fur would fly. The outer echelons broke to engage their new targets, but the center kept pushing, moving even faster to try and break through while the two UNSC fighters were busy.

Morgan keyed her comm, the first Seraph filling her targeting crosshair as she squeezed the firing stud for the two autocannons and sent burning tracers across the Seraph's shielding, a silvery glow covering the alien craft. "2-1, count four possible Seraphs breaking through, get ready for company, we'll hold the rest."

" _Thanks for the heads up. We'll handle it."_ Scoundrel's chirp had deepened to something more, something focused entirely on the battle at hand, all hints of a Pixy hiding in her gone.

The Seraph's shields broke after a moment of sustained fire, and Morgan's thumb flicked the weapons selector switch to missiles, locking almost immediately due to the short range and the size of the Seraph. Four Medusa missiles shot out, and if there had been air, she would have heard them screeching as they shot after their target.

The first missile impacted, hitting one of the engines and blowing it apart, the second and third following close behind and impacting amidships, and the fourth missed due to the kinetic force of the other missiles hitting. It didn't matter, because the Seraph had met its match after the second missile hit. Secondary explosions went through the hull before ripping the fighter apart in a cloud of orange and blue flame.

She didn't have time to admire her kill, however, and quickly turned her guns on another Seraph, repeating the steps from before. Her third ship came soon after, and she was on its tail with little effort.

The first burst of cannon fire hit home, but then the Seraph started going evasive, forcing her to follow or risk losing it, and she grunted as the G forces began to take hold of her. She controlled her breathing, deep breaths and tensed muscles dealing with most of the sensation, and kept herself locked on target.

More cannon fire struggled to hit home, but most of it missed, and she frowned, taking more time to lead the target and line up her shots, before another burst hit it and knocked out the shielding on the craft, some rounds managing to get through and make hits on the bulbous craft's right wing, ripping several holes into the hull and leaving a nasty smattering of puncture wounds on it.

It wobbled and rolled, looking as if it was out of control, before it stabilized and several thrusters on the front of the craft fired, retro thrusters stopping its forward momentum as Morgan rocketed past.

Her lips parted slightly in surprised, and she immediately started evasive manuevers, the Sabre lacking retro thrusters. It had been an unexpected maneuver. Brutes had never been good thinkers in a fight, much less in naval or aerial combat. This one apparently broke that mold, and as plasma bolts splashed against the bright silver shielding of the Sabre, she knew she had to do something or she'd risk getting herself killed.

She juked and banked, rolled and dove, but the Seraph was always on her. The pilot couldn't get many hits on her with her evasive style, but it never lost her trail, and she cursed as she looked back over her shoulder to see it still hot on her heels. "Caesar, I've got a tail. Can you assist?"

A few moments of silence, before a strained grunt came through. " _I'm un-"_ A deep breath and the sound of the man's body tensing up. " _-unable to assist. You're on your own, Noble."_

The words he used sent ice hurtling through her veins, the words of a dead man that had sacrificed himself for her to complete her mission. It did something to her, and the world slowed down.

Spartan time kicked in, and the plasma bolts rushing past either side of her canopy were little more than blue blobs that could have been dodged by simply pulling the stick left or right. Her thoughts sped up, and she tried something that could end badly.

Cutting the engines, she fired the maneuvering thrusters, pushing the nose of the Sabre up and over until she had rotated 180 degrees. Now, her canopy showed the Seraph baring down on her with its weapons blazing, and she returned the favor, her shield already glittering as more plasma started splashing across her shields.

Her finger pulled back on the firing stud for the autocannons, and the Sabre growled beneath her as the cannons roared their silent cry, tracers leaping out and shattering against the Seraph's silver shielding.

The two craft fired endlessly in the slowed down world that was Spartan Time. Both refused to relent, to wave off, to stop firing for even a second, and sooner or later, one of them would lose shielding.

For Morgan, it was a lucky day, and the silver lattice surrounding the Seraph snapped, shattering into nonexistence. The 30mm rounds started ripping into the front of the Seraph's hull, at least half of the tracers ricocheting off of the sloped frontal armor and spinning off into space, but for the rest, it didn't matter. Dozens of shots tore into the cockpit, shattering glass and smashing the pilot inside until he was nothing more than a cloud of purple blood and destroyed internals.

Then everything snapped back into place, and her maneuvering thrusters fired again at the same time as her main engines, the remains of the Seraph flashing past, spinning off into the nothingness as it disintegrated into hundreds of pieces and started to fall into the Ark's atmosphere.

Several warning alarms blared in her ears as she came back to the real world, her shields having been all but depleted with little more than a hair left in the shielding bar. She breathed a sigh of relief as the bar started to slowly fill back up, and she moved to reenter the fight.

Caesar, still dealing with the final Seraph on his end, was close to finishing the fight, and she moved to break the deadlock that was forming as the two fighters circled in an attempt to gain the upper hand when one or the other slipped up. Her missile lock tone chirped and four missiles shot out for the Seraph, mid turn, and smashed into the rear of the ship. It didn't break its shields, but it wasn't meant to.

With another craft in the fight, the Brute went evasive to try and defend against two instead of one, and it was already a loss for him as Caesar managed to get the nose of his Broadsword up just enough for the cannons to lock on, and more autocannon rounds jumped from the barrels to the Seraph, dropping the shields and smashing both engines into little more than expensive space debris, before he finished the target off with a salvo of missiles.

Forming up on his wing again, Morgan listened as he called out to Scoundrel. " _We're done on our end. Everything alright, 2-1?"_ He sounded out of breath, a side effect of struggling against the forces of inertia in a heated battle against superior numbers. He had done well.

" _Roger, couple got through, stopped them in their tracks when that monster of a gunship_ _with us_ _opened up on them. We're about to bust through the atmosphere, Sierra should be home free at this point."_

" _Stick with them until_ _the_ _retasking order comes through. We'll cover your way out."_

_"_ _You got it, boss. Out."_

Morgan watched out the left side of her cockpit, spotting the half dozen fireballs of Sierra and the second element of Ranger dropping into the artificial atmosphere around the Ark. Taking the time to look at it now, she was reminded of how everything on the last Halo installation had looked. It had almost felt natural, and if the ring hadn't been rising up above her, coming into a complete circle, she'd have thought it was all real. But that was just it. It _was_ real, and knowing the Forerunners could create that, could create the Ark, so far outside of the Milky Way, it brought even more unsettling questions into her mind.

She pushed them all away, pushed them deep into the back of her mind with all the rest of the things that worried her in the darkness of her subconscious, and forced herself to forget about it all. Her eyes tore themselves away, and she locked them onto the cockpit displays.

Ammunition count was still reading green, not even a quarter of her total ordinance expended for either of her stocks, and her fuel gauge was still more than enough for prolonged operations. Engine temperature was still high, nothing to worry about.

" _Hey Noble, you ever seen anything like this before?"_

Caesar's question broke her from watching over the displays, and she looked up at his craft for a moment, before she went back to them. "Can't say that I have, Caesar."

He hummed through the channel, lazily flying around in an orbit around the area they had last contacted Ranger's second element. " _Brings up a lot of questions about the universe, don't it? Why would anybody need something this big?"_

She was put on the spot. She didn't know. She had no clue what this was for, other than to fire the rest of the rings. Was it a sanctuary? An area out of range of the rings? It brought another question to mind that echoed in her head. If it was out of range, would they be able to move Humanity here? Fire the rings and wipe out the Covenant and Flood, commit them to little more than ghosts in a history book that children read about a hundred years from now?

_It's getting awfully dark in here, Morgan._

Kat's voice put the thoughts to bed for her, and she narrowed her eyes. What was this supposed to be? Was the other woman haunting her in an attempt to keep her Human? To keep the darkness at bay when it started creeping up on her from behind again?

It didn't matter. She pushed it all away, or Kat dragged it away from her, and set her thoughts on the mission again. These issues were making themselves apparent more and more, showing up at the worst times, getting to her in instances where it might get her or someone else killed.

" _You alright over there? You're drifting._ "

Caesar's voice called out again, breaking the silence as she realized that she had indeed been drifting off, breaking out of the formation she had been holding. Pulling the stick and closing it up again, she responded. "I'm fine, just got caught up looking at it all."

Caesar didn't respond, and she was thankful for it. She looked at the space battle still raging, the two lines staying far apart and lobbing shots at each other. The _Shadow of Intent_ , hanging in the center of the allied fleet, launched several plasma torpedoes, the bright red globs of plasma kept in a tight shape that hit a Loyalist ship directly amidships and ripping it in half. Then the _Intent_ began to maneuver, enough that she saw part of the _Forward Unto Dawn_ slip out from behind it before the UNSC frigate slipped back into the cover provided by the bigger ship's shielding, disappearing behind the carrier once more, only for a bright flash to materialize under the massive bow.

An instant later, a pencil thin beam of bright white light shot out from the _Intent_ 's forward energy projector, covering the distance between the Loyalist and Separatist fleets, piercing the shielding of one of the opposing assault carriers. With the firing of another set of maneuvering thrusters, the _Intent_ 's trajectory shifted, and the energy projector was drawn across the enemy carrier, slicing through it like a hot knife through butter. The assault carrier wasn't the only target, however, and with the momentum of the thrusters, it continued on its path of destruction, bisecting a CCS class battle cruiser before the white light thinned out, and finally ceased.

Secondary explosions went up all across the Brute carrier's frame, starting from the entry point for the energy projector and traveling from the inside out. Engines failed, shielding cracked and shattered, and the stress of the explosions blew the rest of the carrier's slender goose neck apart, the two parts of the carrier drifting before going up in a massive flare that left only chunks of the hull behind. The explosive force of the ship's detonation alone sent several smaller vessels that had been too close careening into their allies, a handful of ships disappearing inside of the blue-white and orange tinged fireball that was quickly snuffed out in the vacuum.

Several ships had lost shielding from the blast wave, and their hulls had been deformed by the intense heat of the blast, some still glowing white hot on their bow as glittering remnants were scattered amongst the remaining ships in a field of debris. More plasma torpedoes and swarms of archer missiles were lobbed into the weakened battle line, and more Loyalist ships fell victim to the withering barrage that the Sangheilli fleet was capable of bringing to bear. Single ships became little more than nuisances as allied Seraphs and Broadswords were sent on hunter-killer missions to annihilate whatever enemy fighters had strayed too far from their capital ships.

Morgan watched, her heart thumping in her chest and ears, as she saw firsthand what it was like to have the firepower of alien ships turned away from her for once, seeing how ruthlessly the Sangheilli had put down the Brute fleet, despite being outnumbered three to one. The brutality of it was a far cry from the honor that some Sangheilli had shown during the war, but it was no less devastating, and it chilled her to think of what it might have been like had the Sangheilli ever turned the dial up on Humanity during the war. They had been beholden to Prophets, to their religion, and now they were let loose against former masters with enough rage and hate to turn their enemy to glass with the force of their fury alone.

The communications suite chirped loudly, and Morgan waited for Caesar to answer it, but his voice never came. Hers would do. "Noble," she responded.

" _Commander, return to the ship, Ranger is reforming and retasking, you're going to ground."_ It was Commander Keyes, her voice clipped and to the point.

"Yes ma'am. Status on the entry teams?"

" _They're clearing an area of anti-aircraft guns, and the_ Dawn _is going in to land._ Autumn _and_ Aegis Fate _are breaking off to secure a landing zone for prolonged basing a hundred miles east, but we've learned the location of the Cartographer and need to offload heavier assets._ "

The Covenant fleet was in disarray, left as broken hulls or ships that were led by nothing more than a fragmented command structure, with commanders that were already subpar in space and the ground. Their strength did them no favors when the Sangheilli could sit back and rip them apart piece by piece from range.

Green eyes looked back to the broadsword next to her, and she decided to finish it up quick. "I'll be there soon. Noble out." The channel cut, switching back to the one shared by Ranger, and her words caught Caesar's ear. "I'm being retasked. Be careful, I won't be here to save you next time."

A snort on the other end. " _Whatever you say Commander. Stay safe out there, and I'll see you again._ "

It was short, nothing more needed to be said. Neither knew each other well enough, or at all, really, to have a long dialogue, but Morgan had grown accustomed to teamwork again. Going to ground, she would be working with Marines, ODSTs, and likely the Master Chief.

She wondered what things would be like on the ground, having been detached from the rest of the battle net for the most part, and pulled on the stick, angling the Sabre towards the _Dawn_ , already dipping its nose and heading for the surface.

* * *

The Sabre didn't suffer any rapid change in velocity, slipping into the rear hangar bay of the _Dawn_ with a few jets of its maneuvering thrusters. Morgan was out of the fighter quickly, her rifle coming with her as she checked it over once again. Plenty could happen, and she wasn't fond of the idea of her weapon malfunctioning when she needed it most.

With the deck clear for the moment, maintenance workers in EVA suits swarmed across the hangar to secure the Sabre and start rearming and refueling it, just in case. Even if she wasn't here, someone would be able to fly it one way or another. It was like riding a bike, albeit one with more than a horn and two brake lines.

Slipping over the lip of the cockpit frame, she fell to the heavy decking below with a loud thud, and made for the doorway that led to the rest of the ship, the bridge in particular. Bright white lights filled the corridors, and the bulkheads were armed and ready, primed for shutting the instant an issue came up in the sector any one of them belonged to. If a fire broke out or the ship was holed, the damage would be contained immediately.

There were marines running for the holding areas short of the bays. Without energy shielding, the hangar was exposed to vacuum, and there weren't nearly enough EVA suits to go around. More than one pair of eyes roved over the golden visor as she ran past, her heavy armor brokering no argument as it claimed the majority of the corridor space for itself and the woman inside. Nothing would slow her down.

Doors parted and the corridors wound about in a steel labyrinth, stairs climbed higher into the skeleton of the ship, and finally the bridge came into view. A pair of Marines, armored and armed, stood guard outside with shotguns, and the mechanical gaze passed over her as an automated defense turret hung from the ceiling, tracking her every move.

The two Marines saluted, but she didn't return it, blowing past them and into the bridge as soon as the doors parted enough for her to enter. Naval personnel sat at consoles, voices filling the air as they coordinated the movements of all three frigates and their aerospace assets. Dull red lighting replaced the bright white that the rest of the ship was bathed in, and Commander Miranda Keyes peered over her shoulder as the younger woman entered the bridge.

"Noble Six, you move fast."

"I aim to please."

Keyes hummed, turning back to look at the holographic displays on the small space that her command chair's arms offered, and the multitude of camera displays and windows showed the Ark rising up to meet them, as if the arms would close like giant petals and swallow the frigate whole. "And I'm eternally grateful for that. Situation on the ground is clearing up, multiple AA defense zones neutralized by the Master Chief and the Marine force on the ground. Sierra made it through with few problems, thanks to Ranger's work."

Morgan was relieved. At least that had gone to plan, despite the loss Sierra had taken. "You said the _Dawn_ was landing?"

"Not exactly. Less of a landing and more of a drop off. Scorpions and Gauss Warthogs are being moved into the bay to be offloaded and push towards the Cartographer. That's where you come in. You'll be leading the armored offensive, covering the Master Chief on the ground while he works through the internals. You're as steely a leader as any, and those Marines could use you now more than anything."

Keyes' eyes returned to the Ark, knowing that most of the Humans onboard were seeing something that was new, unbelievable, and even more alien than the Covenant. There was no telling what was down there, and while the ground forces hadn't run into anything indigenous to the area except the caretaker Sentinels, she wasn't looking forward to meeting any more alien life.

"I'll get it done, ma'am."

"I know you will."

Morgan crossed her arms, moving to stand behind Keyes' command chair and look over her shoulder. The displays all showed more variables than even she could count, sensors feeding a near limitless supply of data through to the half dozen stations on the bridge, readings for the quickly thickening atmosphere and the composition of the air, the makeup of the Ark itself, and far more keeping a quick finger on the _Dawn_ 's heartbeat as the reactor ebbed and flowed like an ocean with the power it needed to output.

Bridge crew called back and forth to each other and Keyes, everybody doing their job perfectly. They were the best the Navy had to offer, and Morgan knew they would all be needed before the end of this.

The greens, blues, and browns of the land below filled the view they were given, expanding out until the blue oceans disappeared, and then the green plains and forests, before all that was left was the brown canyons that dozens of UNSC Marines had been dumped into. The _Dawn_ rumbled as the atmosphere continued to grow thicker, until it started to level out and the powerful engines reversed their thrust to slow the frigate down.

Keyes took the ship's intercomm in hand, giving a warning before things got too hairy. "All hands, brace for deceleration and prepare for atmospheric operations."

Morgan's magnetic boots locked her down, and she stood as still as a statue, despite the changing orientation of the frigate, but Keyes and the rest of the crew were forced to hold tight to their stations. More than one crewman somewhere on the ship would be eating the deck, regardless of the warning that had gone out.

On the ground, a pair of Warthogs sat waiting, oily black smoke trails curling into the sky from the burnt out corpses of several anti-air Wraiths and numerous destroyed Ghosts. The figures on the ground were too small for Morgan to catch as the _Dawn_ kicked up a sandstorm with the air it was displacing, moving as quickly as it was, but Morgan didn't need to worry, already turning on her heel without another word and making for the hangar bay.

It was a short trip, her boots echoing off of the deck in that rhythmic pattern that she had memorized long ago, and the bulkhead doors split open when she got close enough. She was met with the sight of several Scorpion Main Battle Tanks being moved into position on the three cargo elevators that had moved into place where the Pelicans and fighters had dropped through.

Marines and deck crew were ensuring that everything went smoothly, the roar of the Scorpions' engines and a few more Warthogs filled the air, and the _Dawn_ came to a stop. Stepping onto the decking, several glances were sent her way as the personnel working the deck saw another Spartan preparing to enter the battlespace.

One of the Scorpions was crewed already, but had an open slot on the machine gun turret that sat to the right of the crew hatch, and Morgan claimed it for herself. It wasn't as if anybody would stop her, after all.

Sliding into the turret and pulling the charging handle back on the M247T machine gun, satisfied as it gave off a loud click and slid forward, the first bullet of the ammo belt sliding into place. The rest of the belt led down into the hull, where a massive box held the rest of the ammo. She wouldn't be running out any time soon.

To her left, she rapped on the top of the cockpit hatch, and it slid back and hinged upward to show a female Marine wearing the sound proofed helmet of a tanker, freckles dusting her face and orange hair peeking out under the rim of the helmet. She looked at the Spartan, squinting as if confused, lips parted slightly, and it dawned on her who her new machine gunner was. Dipping back into the hull, she hit the communications gear, sending a handshake to Morgan's armor, and it was accepted as the crew compartment's hatch closed.

When the tanker's voice came through the speakers in her helmet, she winced. The sound of it grated on her ears, and she spoke with a Scottish accent that was thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. " _Pleasure to be havin' ya, ma'am."_ The pronunciation of ma'am brought something to mind, an echo that reminded Morgan of Jorge, and how the big man's own accent had been another of his endearing qualities.

"Pleasure is mine, trooper, as long as you know how to drive decently."

A scoff sounded as the light from the outside world filtered in and the cargo elevators lowered the half dozen tanks to the ground. " _Aye, I can drive, ma'am. I'll do a handfull'o donuts for ye when I get the chance. You'll never wanna ride with anyone else, I promise."_

Morgan smiled slightly behind her helmet, despite it all. The trooper was confident, at least, and she was quick with her wit. "Who am I riding with, anyway?"

" _Sergeant Leslie Fergus_ _on_ _, 7_ _th_ _Armored,_ _Radio callsign is_ _Armadillo, tank shares the name._ _"_

"Copy. I'll keep you safe." Morgan checked her weapon again and felt the Scorpion jolt underneath her, the elevator coming to a stop against the dusty ground. The Warthogs had already rocketed off of the elevators, massive tires causing dirt and sand to blow up in fish tails behind them. One of the Warthogs with a gauss cannon had already been taken over by the Master Chief, the green giant planted in the rotating circular plate that acted as the firing position for the cannon. "One moment, Armadillo. Follow the Hogs, you're lead armor for now."

" _Aye, ma'am."_

With a switch and another call, she had her counterpart on the line. "Master Chief, status."

" _Green, ma'am._ " His gravely tone was the same as always, barely changed despite what must have been hectic fighting on the ground.

"Anything to report?"

" _Objective has been moved into a valley on the opposite side of the ridge to our right. There's an entryway through the mountains that we can get the tanks through. I'll have to dismount to open the interior for you with the help of the Monitor._ "

"The monitor?" She had a suspicion that she had already met this monitor, but waited for more.

" _Yes ma'am. The Elites referred to it as the 'Oracle'._ "

"The blue ball that tried to fix Cortana."

" _Affirmative."_

"Understood. You're running point then, Chief. I've got your back." The channel cut out, and rather than respond with his words, the green status light on Morgan's HUD winked to life, before it went dark again and the Warthog in the lead of the new convoy that had formed led the way up and through a cave.

The cave sheltered them from the sun, and the sound of the vehicles echoed off of the stone walls, becoming a deafening cacophony that would have deafened Morgan's sensitive ears, but her helmet automatically dampened the noise.

She frowned, looking up and around at the interior. Even having been on Halo herself, the sheer size and scale of the installation that she was trundling across was awe inspiring, and had she not been on it at that moment, she would have laughed off the notion of something like this existing the way it did.

_You take me to such nice places. A shame that I'm dead and all, you know?_

Morgan's breath caught in her throat as Kat came up in her mind again. It quickly turned to a low growl as she muttered for her sister's ghost to pick any other time to come back, clenched teeth making it more of a hiss.

Any reply that Kat had was drowned out by the teeth rattling crack of the Master Chief's gauss cannon firing on something.

" _Contact._ " The gravelly reply was heard by all of those in the convoy, Marines in the Warthogs and the Scorpions preparing to engage as they crested the hill, the Warthogs breaking formation and hurtling past on either side of Ferguson's Scorpion.

The MBT pushed up and over the curve in the ground, flat land leading to a ridge that ran along the outside of a canyon, the interior dropping a dozen feet. The far side of the canyon was artificial, or more artificial than the surrounding landscape. A steel colored structure jutted out from the canyon's wall, blue highlights moving up and down the structure's rib-like supports. A team of Wraiths, several Ghosts, and a pair of heavy plasma cannons sat waiting on the bridge that was held under the structure. The Ghosts had already broke off, dropping into the depression and engaging the Warthogs that met them head on.

Morgan's hand pointed off to the left, giving the order to follow the ridge line and provide supporting fire and keep from closing with the Wraiths. Armadillo did as she was ordered, and the other Scorpions followed close behind, turrets all swiveling to find targets.

The first shell was fired from behind, slamming into a Ghost and ripping it in half with the force of the round's explosion. Another shot from Armadillo was fired at a second Ghost, but failed to hit. Plasma bolts from the plasma cannons shot out in a withering barrage that splashed against the hulls of the tanks, scorching the armor. One was a lucky hit, a Marine a few tanks back getting hit in the chest and ripped apart by the blast, his corpse sinking into the machine gun turret's slot.

" _Armadillo, this is Anvil, my machine gunner is down._ "

" _I hear you, Anvil. Commander did too. Just don't stop, focus fire on the emplacements and then move on to the Wraiths. Hogs can deal with the Ghosts._ "

Morgan frowned, the distance between her and the emplacements being somewhat large, but she turned the turret anyway and pulled back on the trigger. The gun shook in her hands, the armor dampening the recoil somewhat, and she walked the bright yellow tracers across the left most emplacement. Bullets pinged off of the armor, until a few lucky hits shredded the Grunt that had been manning the controls, a jet of bright blue letting the Spartan know she had pulped her target completely and silenced one of the guns. The other was hit soon after, a 90mm HE shell from the Scorpion that had lost the machine gunner impacting at the base of the turret and flipping it through the air. The Grunt gunner was stuck inside, however, and when the turret came back down, the diminutive alien was crushed beneath the emplacement's weight, more of the bright blue blood pooling around it within seconds.

The ridge's turn had a path leading down into the depression, and Morgan made note of it, but kept Ferguson moving on. Giving up the height advantage against Wraiths would be a bad idea. "Focus the Wraiths before they zero us in!"

Already, the shots from the Wraiths had been closing on the convoy, another heavy blue ball of plasma from one of the plasma mortars impacting against the wall and raining molten rock and globules of glass down on Morgan's armor. She ignored it, shifting the machine gun in her hands to aim at one of the Ghosts in the depression below.

Opening fire again, she riddled the purple fast attack craft with armor piercing rounds, the Brute in the saddle attempting to shift and evade the fire. Morgan wouldn't let him get away, and her accuracy was evidence to that, but she wouldn't claim the kill herself. A thin blue-white line shot through the Ghost's frontal armor and pierced through to the driver, killing both the vehicle and the Brute inside.

Shifting her gaze, the Gauss Warthog the Master Chief stood on roared past the remains of the vehicle before it blew, and she narrowed her eyes. He was good, better than her in a sense, but she was glad to have him. He would be an incredibly powerful asset on the field with his experiences.

Ferguson fired again, the cannon's shockwave washing over her as the round sent downrange plowed into the frontal armor of the Wraith. It exploded before the sound of the ejecting shell casing hit the dirt, crushed beneath the treads of the next tank in the line.

" _All enemy vehicles wiped out, entrance is clear_ _."_ Ferguson's voice filled her ears, and she nodded to herself.

Opening a channel to the main force, she gave her next orders. "Master Chief, it's your show now. We'll wait for you to open the gates. Vehicles move into the depression and wait near the bottom level of the gate. The Chief and the little blue bulb he has with him are about to pick the lock for us."

The Scorpions came to a halt, the treads grinding and creaking underneath and kicking up a cloud of dust as they rotated in place and Ferguson's tank led them down into the depression. The Warthog ferrying the Master Chief rumbled past them, moving up onto the ridge and the artificial bridge to get to the upper level of the gate's entrance, coming to a screeching halt and letting him off.

The Warthog returned to the fold, a Marine leaving one of the Scorpions turrets and taking the Spartan's place. The rest of the convoy filed into place, spreading out around the area and looking to the multiple entrances to the canyon in case of unwanted visitors.

Her comms suite crackled and a Marine called to her. " _Commander, incoming Phantom, one of ours. Orders?"_

Morgan looked skyward, a Phantom painted in the deep green that they had all taken after throwing away the Covenant's purple. She bit the inside of her lip, green eyes roving over it for a few moments as it came in and slowed to a stop next to the upper level. "Leave it alone. There's gotta be a good reason they're throwing in with us when there's this much firepower here."

She was right, and the comm stayed quiet. The side door to the Phantom dropped open and a squad of black armored Sangheilli special operations personnel leaped onto the platform, followed closely by the Arbiter himself. The floor was glass, allowing her to keep looking up as they linked up with the Spartan and the fluttering blue orb that was seemingly always around them.

The group conversed among themselves, but she didn't hear any of it, and they disappeared into the structure without a word to her or the rest of the convoy, and the Phantom bugged out just as soon as it had shown up. It would have been useful, but she wasn't going to call for it to come back.

The Marines around her were all hardened veterans, drawn from the toughest they had to be deployed against the strongest Covenant presence that had been on Earth, but they were all looking around, faces carved from stone, and fingers slowly rubbing against triggers to scratch an itchy they dare not act on without an alien in sight.

" _At least the place is shaded..."_ Ferguson muttered over the comms channel.

" _Shade my ass, place is covered by a glass ceiling. At least you've got a closed up tank with A/C in it."_ Another Marine called from the back of a Warthog, gun still traversing the sky in case of enemy air attack.

" _Ain't it great, the comforts of modern technology?_ " Ferguson's wit was as quick as her finger on the trigger, and Morgan felt a half smile tug at her lips. She would like to let it keep going, to prevent Kat from coming back in the silence, but she knew what she had to do, and she knew that Kat wouldn't care regardless.

"Cut the chatter, Marines. Stay focused. We've made it this far and I don't need any more of you getting hit because you're focused on your words."

Nobody responded, but a few Marines glanced over at her, sunken into the hull of the tank with her hands still guiding the gun into a lazy arc across the sky.

None of them were troopers she had fought with on the ground, but cobbled together from forces that had taken enough losses to be completely annihilated and then reformed into a hodgepodge convoy of armor assets. Most of them didn't know each other, save for the odd pair of Marines that were holdovers of shattered forces. They knew of her, however, and had heard her words in response to Hood.

 _You've got a Spartan on the ground_.

They were with a Spartan, one of the last to enter a battlespace during the Human-Covenant War, the greatest trial ever witnessed by mankind. She would get them through. She would inspire them. She would be the burning torch that guided them through that dark night that Hood was so worried about, and with the massive gate in front of them creaking open as millenia of dust was knocked loose, they followed her into the first of many dark places in the final hours of that God forsaken war.

* * *

The flood lights on the front of the Scorpion lit up, bringing something standard and white to the lighting provided only by the blue insets that were scattered across the Ark's internals. Morgan's own helmet lamps and the light assembly on the Warthogs turned on to provide even more illumination in a place that felt rubbed at the last Noble's instincts. Something was wrong, or it would be wrong. What it was, she could only wait to see it.

Ferguson kept the Scorpion moving slowly, cannon pointed straight ahead while the others covered other fields of fire. Warthogs growled quietly as they traveled on either side of the armor column, the corridor they had gone into being large enough for them to travel three tanks abreast and have room to spare if it was needed.

Her motion tracker was filled with silhouettes of the vehicles, all of them a reassuring yellow. At least they weren't finding more Covie troopers hidden in the corridor. It had been the same sight for most of the trip, and they had spent several minutes driving now. There was no telling how much further it went.

Then the other dots popped up on her motion tracker, half a dozen yellow icons showing their advance force. They were close by, and a massive door rose out of the darkness and the gloom, the powerful lights playing over it and bathing it in their glow.

A groan, a jumpy reaction from more than one of the Marines, and the door split open, showing a massive chasm that was empty save for the two outcroppings that sat waiting. Morgan frowned deeply, fearing they had run into a dead end.

Hoisting herself up, she looked over at the yellow dots, scanning until they showed as directly ahead, but nothing was there. Looking up, she jerked as Ferguson stopped the tank, but caught sight of the bulky figure of the Master Chief on a ledge that ran from one door to another before it disappeared into the walls.

Clicking her comms, she called out to him. "You find anything, Master Chief?"

" _Affirmative._ _A bridge will get you across, and should take you outside after another corridor."_

"A bridge?" Morgan frowned again, looking to the chasm ahead. There wasn't anything that looked like it would slide out and let them across, no swinging system to get something in place. "You sure about that?"

" _Affirmative."_

His reply was short, leading her to look up at him again. His weapon was held down at his side, his fingers gliding across a holographic console as the Elite strike team with him watched his back, the Arbiter looking over the Spartan's shoulder to watch his moves.

A heavy thud filled the air, and she looked for the source, but light at the corner of her eye caught her attention. A rainbow of color had filled in the gap between the outcroppings, looking just like a bridge. She didn't trust it.

"...I'm not liking the look of this, Chief."

" _It should hold your weight. I've interacted with these types of bridges before. Trust me._ "

Morgan clenched her jaw. She would trust him, but only so much. Disembarking from the tank, she hoisted herself out of the turret position and over the side, walking to the front.

"Uh… _ma'am?"_ Ferguson's worried voice filtered in, and Morgan looked back with her hand up to stall any further questions.

Stepping out and onto the bridge, she pressed her armored boot against it, testing the weight, and then the other, until her full weight was on it and there was no sign of it breaking. Slowly, she moved forward again, looking back to gesture Armadillo and the other tanks and vehicles across one by one. The engines purred, reverberating off of the metal walls and filling the air as the first tank rolled across the bridge.

It didn't break, or crack, or even fade, and with the entirety of Armadillo on the bridge, Morgan was certain that it would all be fine. She spared one more look up at the Master Chief and winked her green status light. His only reply was to flash his own, a solid green burning against her HUD, before he turned and moved through the next door with his team close behind.

The vehicles kept moving across, and Morgan walked back to Armadillo and stepped up onto the tread cover as it began its push through the next set of doors and into another blacked out corridor. Sliding into her gunner position again, she allowed herself to relax slightly.

" _Let's not ever do that again? Please?"_ Ferguson's voice was thick with her accent and her relief that she hadn't been dropped into a bottomless pit on an ancient alien megastructure.

"No promises, Sergeant." As much as she would have liked to, she couldn't promise that it wouldn't happen again, because as far as she knew, every other corridor would be just like this one, however stupid of a design idea it would have been in her eyes.

The convoy kept moving through the dark, and Morgan heard the door shut behind the last Scorpion with a loud clang, causing her to look back and frown again. Her face was starting to hurt with how often it came about. There was nothing she could do now, though, except keep moving forward to the end.

It wasn't long, fortunately, and the next set of doors rose out of the darkness, sliding open as the tanks approached and letting in a blinding light that promised salvation from the interior.

Ferguson rolled Armadillo out and into the sunlight once again, and the sound of static filled Morgan's ears as she reconnected to the main battlenet.

" _-_ _mmander, do you read me? Commander!_ " Sergeant Major Avery Johnson was calling to her, and she answered quickly.

"I hear you, Johnson, what happened while I was off the grid?"

Urgency was in his voice, and his answer sent a chill up her spine. " _Scarab, about to pass right over top of you!"_

Morgan's mind had only just begun to process it when a shadow covered the convoy again, a massive Scarab stepping over the convoy and digging its feet into the Forerunner metal.

"Scarab! Watch where it plants its legs and try not to get crushed!" Even while Ferguson cursed into her ear and the convoy split up into multiple individual units, the bright blue balls that belonged to Wraiths started to fall all around them. They had been caught out, the Covenant waiting for them in the open where they had already set up, rather than engage them in the close quarters corridors where Scorpions would trash the heavy mortar vehicles.

The roar of the Scorpion cannons was deafening, her helmet automatically compensating as she shifted her machine gun to fire on the alien troopers that covered the walker's deck. It shuddered in her grasp, the ammunition belt rattling against the weapon's steel sides as it fed from the ammunition canister, with the number transmitting into her HUD's top right corner shrinking by the second. She had thousands of rounds to call on, but if things got any more hairy, she wondered if they would be enough.

Another thunderclap as the 90mm cannon on Armadillo sent a high explosive shell into the support structure for the Scarab's anti-aircraft gun on the rear deck. It must have been a lucky shot, as coolant started to leak from it, and then plasma following soon after, but that didn't stop it. More fire came from the anti-aircraft gun, drooling like a rabid dog as it fired until it would likely overload and shut down.

The massive walker turned to her, its cannon fixing on Armadillo's position, and it started to shine bright green as it prepared to fire. "Bail! Bail out!"

Her cry to Ferguson as she hoisted herself up wasn't enough, the canopy failing to raise fast enough for her to get out, and she almost grabbed the canopy and tore it off with her own two hands when a shadow passed overhead.

Looking up, a dark green Phantom flew into the battle's airspace, going evasive as the Scarab's anti-aircraft battery tried to acquire it, and it pelted the Scarab with purple plasma fire that had the main gun shift off of Armadillo and its stricken driver.

The Phantom juked and jinked and dived, until finally it passed over the walker, and then she saw what was happening. Several Elites, led by the Arbiter himself and the Master Chief close behind, dove from the open side doors with energy swords lit and engaged the Brutes on the deck.

The Phantom continued to circle the Scarab, the main plasma battery on its underside engaging the several remaining Covenant vehicles on the ground.

"Ferguson, you alright?" She called out to the driver, and she could hear the worry in her voice, her accent thickening as her life had just flashed before her eyes.

" _Aye, 'm alright, jus' a wee bit… oh shite, I nearly filled me pants with that one."_ There was a pause, and then the sound of a slap. " _Okay! Alright! I'm good, let's keep goin'!"_

Morgan nodded to herself, her eyes on the Scarab again. "Good, leave the Scarab to the Chief and the Elites, deal with the rest of the ground forces, and we'll open a path to the Cartographer." The sloping plains they had ridden out on ended abruptly several hundred meters ahead, meeting a massive ocean that crawled off into the distance before the Ark's arms sloped up and off into space. On the right, a structure made of the same material that the interior of the corridor they used to pass through the mountain had been made of rose out of the dusty plains. That would be where the Cartographer was.

" _Aye ma'am, engaging. Anvil! What's your status?_ "

Anvil's commander came over the net, voice strained as a warning alarm filled his cabin. " _It's getting a little hot in here, Armadillo! We lost Slammer when the Scarab showed up and two of the hogs were smashed! Scopes show three Wraiths and half a dozen Ghosts left!"_

Morgan entered the channel herself, giving out another set of orders as she scanned the battlefield. Anvil was down the slope, missing half of his tread pod armor slats and several burning holes in his armor glowed red hot, but his cannon was still going. Another tank, likely Slammer, was a crumpled mess, burning and crackling as its ammunition cooked off inside. Three more tanks were scattered across the battlefield, firing on the move as their machine gunners tried to hold off the Ghosts that were making rapid passing attacks to try and get lucky hits. Another Wraith went up in a flash of blue as Armadillo put a round straight through its forward slope, plasma leaking out and off to the sides to turn the dusty ground into a puddle of glass.

"All tanks, focus the Wraiths, we can handle the Ghosts piece by piece after that. Machine gunners, drop into the hull and try not to expose yourselves more than you have to."

A chorus of affirmatives responded, and Morgan's head turned as she heard more warning alarms wailing, the Scarab behind her dropping to the ground as all four legs went into a failsafe mode in case of power loss or leg damage. The Phantom that had dropped off the strike team returned quickly, hovering near the Scarab as they all retreated from it, and then pulled away at best speed to continue its air support.

"The Scarab is gonna go up! Everybody get clear if you aren't already!" She called out, watching it flash and leak globs of plasma from its damaged weapons systems. The alarm reached a fever pitch, wailing louder and louder, before the Scarab finally went up in a massive flash of blue and orange, scattering pieces of armor and debris to the four winds before coming down in a hail of metal.

Another voice filled the airwaves, a deep chuckle sounding along with it as the _Shadow of Intent_ 's shipmaster spoke up. " _Impressive work, Spartan. I saw that explosion from orbit. We have finished Truth's fleet, and it is nothing more than ruins. Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums."_

The _Shadow of Intent_ , descending into the atmosphere at extreme range, was closing on their position. The Shipmaster had done well in annihilating the Loyalist navy.

The _Forward Unto Dawn_ had done something similar, and as it passed over the plains that had become a battlefield, the close in defense systems opened up, multiple heavy caliber cannons engaging the remains of the Covenant's ground forces. Massive slugs smashed into the top of the Wraiths that remained, and small missiles were launched at the Ghosts, wiping the rest of the Covenant forces off the face of the Ark in this region.

It lowered itself to the ground, the hangar bays opening up and letting what was left of the convoy return to the interior of the ship and unload. Ferguson eased Armadillo onto the elevators, the engine shuddering to a halt as it lifted back up into the frigate. Off towards the structure that had risen out of the ground, Morgan saw the Phantom carrying the Master Chief offload him again halfway up the slope, before the frigate's hangar obscured him once again.

The Spartan hoisted herself from the Scorpion, sitting on the armor for a moment as she looked over at the hatch that covered Ferguson. It remained sealed, but she saw a fist knocking against the viewport. Raising an eyebrow, Morgan reached over, grasping the front of the hatch and making an indent in it, and pulled it up with a grunt.

Inside, Ferguson popped her head out slowly, looking up at the hatch, then following the arm back to Morgan. Her face was sweaty, her hair matted down against her face where it peeked out from under the helmet's rim. "Appreciate the help, Commander."

Morgan merely nodded, standing and sliding down the armor's slope and onto one of the tread pods, before hitting the deck below. Looking around, she saw several Pelicans had returned, her Sabre had been stowed in another area, and the three Broadswords of Ranger flight were still being serviced before being put away. She would find the squadron later, but not yet.

Waving to Ferguson as the woman climbed out and sprawled against the Scorpion's hull, she set off for the bridge.

* * *

The Marine guard covering the bridge saluted Morgan as she closed on it, and the Spartan returned it, the door sliding open in front of her and allowing entrance to the bridge.

Inside, Keyes was still planted firmly in the commander's chair, but her hair was messy and her skin shone with the same sheen of sweat that Ferguson had showed. The other woman looked back over her shoulder, giving a half smile for only a moment. "Good work down there, Commander. The Master Chief is making his way through to the Cartographer now, and the _Aegis Fate_ and _Ode to Autumn_ are halfway through securing a more appropriate basing zone."

Morgan crossed her arms, standing next to Keyes and looking out at the _Shadow of Intent_ , moving closer by the second. "How did the space battle go?"

Keyes only shook her head. "It was a slaughter. The Elites smashed everything that was thrown at them, no ships lost, but a few are heavily damaged. The _Intent_ fought off multiple enemy cruisers more than once, and I don't think I ever saw its shields pop."

"At least they're on our side now," Morgan responded, her helmet coming off and hooking to her belt.

"True. I got a message from Ranger for you, said you can fly with them any time after how you performed earlier."

A snort. "I was good enough to get another invitation?"

Keyes smiled, more genuine this time. "You could say that."

She was stopped from any further conversation, the communications officer turning back in his chair, a hand to one of the cups of his headset. "Ma'am! The Master Chief reports they've found the Cartographer, sending armor telemetry and scan data through now!"

"Put it on the main displays, Lieutenant."

He did as he was told, and Keyes stood as she saw the front displays light up with information that scrolled past faster than most could read it. A diagram of the Ark showed up as well, an icon on it flashing before zooming in and revealing a section near the center had been cut off by a massive wall.

Keyes frowned, looking back to the officer. "What is this? A barrier or defense?"

"Yes ma'am, the monitor is saying that it's a barrier Truth put up. Impenetrable, no way to drop it yet. We- wait one… The Master Chief reports he's been found and engaged."

The comms suite sounded again, directly from Keyes' chair. " _Commander, we're close enough to pick him up, but there's a whole mess of Covie air inbound."_ Johnson, at the helm of one of the Pelicans.

"Push through if you can. We need to evac him and find out what all he's learned in detail. Retasking several Hornets to provide support as well."

" _I'll get him. Johnson out."_

Keyes pointed to the Flight Ops officer. "You heard him, get a flight of Hornets moving, and send an extra flight of Pelicans to get the rest of the Elites out."

The officer did as he was told, fingers flying across his keyboard and his mouth relaying the orders she had given.

With little else to do, Morgan frowned, and Keyes saw it. "Something wrong?"

Morgan pursed her lips. "I'm used to being sent out on the front. Standing here while the Chief does all the heavy lifting with the team of Elites? It doesn't feel right, I guess."

Keyes sat back down in the command chair, frowning slightly. "Burden of command and all that. Although, I've never met a Spartan that was higher ranked than the Chief, or really many Spartans at all other than him."

Morgan looked down at her. "There were others with higher ranks, one even a full commander, to ensure his orders wouldn't be countermanded, but he..." She paused. The order to prevent Spartan deaths from becoming public knowledge ringing in her mind somewhere. "I lost contact with him when Reach fell."

Keyes looked up at her, and her frown grew. "Would you be more comfortable leading from the front like that, then?"

Green eyes dropped to look into another pair. "I would."

"Then it's settled. Get back to the hangar, the Pelicans haven't left yet, and if you're fast enough, you can hitch a ride."

Morgan's helmet was back on her head in a flash, and she was gone. Keyes, her eyes back on the frontal viewport, passing along the _Shadow of Intent_ 's curved features, let herself take a moment to think on the Spartan that had been given partial command of this whole thing, before another alert came through and she responded to it, the moment of downtime gone and the war back on for her.


	10. Just Like Lewis and Clark

The lights set into the ceiling of the _Dawn_ 's corridors flashed by, a bright and dark checkerboard that blurred as the Spartan below them moved for the hangar, legs pumping and boots clanging against the steel decking.

Her breath was an easy pattern, despite her moving at what was a full on sprint for any other Human. The golden visor bobbed up and down, arms swinging as her body shifted, her armor amplifying every movement she made a dozen times over.

The black stock of her battle rifle peeked over her shoulder, the magazine in it full and the weapon's display reading a reassuring 36 on it, linking to her helmet's HUD and showing the same. The pistol strapped to her thigh was just as full, ready to send rounds down range at whatever time she deemed it necessary.

The hangar doors split open in front of her before she made it to them, and her stride didn't slow as she spotted the Pelican waiting for her, the crew chief in it standing at the rear gun that hung down from the roof the bay. The weapon looked menacing, three heavy barrels covered in a triangular shroud. It wasn't spinning yet, but it would when the triggers were pulled, and heads would roll when the chief put it to use.

His visor covered half of his face, his eyes hidden behind it as his nose poked from an opening at the bottom of the bulbous, darkened material. His mouth was set in a frown, but his lips parted when he saw the heavily armed and armored Spartan barreling for his craft.

Turning to the side, he opened up more room for the woman to step onboard, and the golden visor bobbed in acknowledgment as she pushed past and into the cockpit. Two pilots went through their checks, the female copilot on the raised rear seat looking over her while the pilot continued the takeoff procedure.

"We didn't expect a Spartan to join us, ma'am."

"It's a little bit of a last minute change, hope you don't mind." She held the bulkhead on either side, standing halfway through it and staring out the view port.

"Never, ma'am. VIP flights are our specialty. Please fasten your seatbelt and prepare for take off, Staff Sergeant Polk will be your flight attendant and will be making the rounds with whatever we fished out of the seats, some real gourmet stuff. We'll take care of you."

She felt a hint of a smile come to her face as the pilot finished his checks, his voice muffled as he contacted Flight Ops. " _Dawn_ , this is Kilo Four One, ready to extract Cartographer forces. We've got a guest, one Lieutenant Commander..." He glanced back, his voice hanging as he looked up and down Morgan's armor with a raised eyebrow.

Flight Ops cut him off, and connected to the Pelican's intercomm, she heard the answer. " _The Lieutenant Commander's callsign is still Noble, use it until_ _notified otherwise_ _. Deck is clear and the pattern is yours. Get out there and move quick. Flight Ops out."_

With the channel cut, he looked back to the view port. "That's our cue. Lifting off and getting underway, You might wanna find your seat, or kick the Sarge off his gun."

Morgan didn't respond, but she did step back through the door and shut it behind her, the voice switching to the intercomm system. " _Sugar, watch for radar pings, set for twenty miles."_

The female copilot eased into it without any problems, her voice set in that calm tone that pilots alwasy seemed to have when getting ready for battle. _"Rog_ , _master arm on, countermeasures set for pattern two. Radar scanning two bars, surface to angels 10, 20 klicks. Your show for now, Spice."_

Morgan tuned the two pilots out, the Pelican shifting beneath her as it lifted off of the deck and pushed out of the hangar. A gust of air coming off of the _Dawn_ 's hull buffeted it, but the pair didn't miss a beat. The crew chief, at the gun, glanced back over his shoulder as he absorbed the movements, his knees bending and straightening as he moved himself.

" _You want the gun?"_ He called out, his microphone grabbing his voice as the open bay door was filled with gusting wind and the thruster wash the engines gave off.

Her helmet shook, and she held her hand up. "Negative, Staff. This is your ship, I'm just along for the ride. If you need me, I'll be here to protect you."

It was a half joke. She would take his place in an instant if they took fire that put him at harm's risk. He smiled at her from under the half visor, an upward jerk of his chin finishing the conversation as he turned back to watch over the barrel and the shrinking _Forward Unto Dawn_.

Morgan sat in one of the bench seats, green eyes taking in the red stains that covered the decking. Even with the blood being washed away after every trip the Pelican made, some of it made it through the other side, staining the metal over the craft's life. Some looked fresher than others.

She pulled her battle rifle from her shoulder, readying it as she cradled it in her arms. She would hit the ground running if she needed to.

The Pelican turned and banked, the thrusters whining as more power was fed into them. The back and forth of the two pilots increased in frequency. " _Getting hits on the radar, and_ _the LIDAR is painting… two ship formation, Phantoms. Times three Banshee escort. Viper missiles searching… locked on t_ _hree_ _. They're beaming."_

_"Copy all, Sugar. Fire at will."_

_"Fox, Fox, Fox."_ The sound of three ASM-200 Vipers igniting their engines and leaving the rocket pods slung under the Pelican's stubby wings sounded through the Pelican's hull. Morgan heard the hiss, able to detect each individual launch, despite the three of them going at the same time.

The Pelican rocked and banked, dropping altitude before it stabilized again, skimming the dusty ground before it nosed up along the structure the Cartographer strike team had gone through. " _Splash three Banshees. Phantom signatures aren't on my screens anymore."_

 _"Keep an eye out. I'll reach for Hocus._ "

There was a click as Spice switched frequencies, one that Morgan followed. " _Hocus, you read me?"_

The deep drawl of the pilot Morgan had run into multiple times now sounded loud and clear. " _Affirm, Spice. They send you out for backup?"_

_"Someone's gotta watch your back and Sugar'd never let me live it down if you went and got splashed with us nearby. 'Sides, commander is sending plus one Sierra to break out Jolly Green."_

The banter between the flight crews was easy going and filled with jokes and jabs, despite the situation they were all in. Far from home, stuck on an alien megastructure, the threat of galactic extinction looming, and they were cracking jokes?

Morgan shook her head ever so slightly, but she had a hint of a smile on her face. The Pelican shifted beneath her boots, the craft rolling and pitching as it changed its vector.

" _Commander's already looking to get back into the thick of it?"_

" _Rog, Keyes sent her our way almost immediately after the armor loaded back up."_

Hocus's chuckle filtered through, a hint of static overlaying her accent. " _Sounds about right. I've got you on datalink, Spice. Take up loose right and follow me in. Those Phantoms can't have bugged out completely if they know what's going on. Chief's said they've got an entire pack of Brutes in there. Think they'll slow him down?"_

_"I don't think so Hocus, and before you ask, I've never been much of a betting man."_

A tsking sound. " _You've always been a buzzkill though."_

The Pelican shifted again, angling to the right as it met up with Hocus in the other transport. The two craft picked up speed, the area outside of the rear bay swirling by faster and faster. Jet wash increased in volume as more power was fed from the powerplants and the wind outside was whipped into a frenzy around the air frame.

Morgan eased her grip on the rifle, lest she squeeze it to pieces, and her finger started drumming against the trigger guard as she waited.

Hocus' voice sounded in her helmet again, calm and serious. " _Times two Phantoms, not far from the Chief's transponder. We've got this one, Spice."_

Another voice, likely from Hocus' copilot. " _Locked. Fox out._ "

The shriek of a pair of missiles firing from the launch tubes on the other bird filled the bay, two puffs of exhaust getting left behind, and there was no more sound until several seconds later, twin thunderclaps passed over the Pelican.

" _Splash two Phantoms. Sky is clear for now. Go, go, go."_

Hocus led the way into the drop zone, and within seconds the Pelican Morgan stood in rotated as if hovering, and slowed to a stop with the rear bay facing towards the Cartographer. She could see spiker rounds and plasma fire crisscrossing the distance between the Covenant position below and the Chief hunkered behind a steel berm. The rest of the Elite team he had gone in with were doing likewise, several armed with carbines and plasma rifles trading with the Brutes. Half a dozen Brute corpses already littered the area, and Morgan flashed her green status light as soon as she was in range.

Another winked on as the gun that hung from the bay's ceiling began to turn and spit flames, Polk holding down the trigger and adding to the mix. Another roar off to the left, where Hocus hovered, increased the din of fire. Staccato cracks, sharp coughs, and deep roars drowned out all sound against the whine of plasma rifles and the chattering of spikers.

Shouldering the rifle, Morgan took aim and started firing into the enemy line. Several Brutes in the blue of minors and the gold of captains shifted their sights to her, and she kept firing to keep their heads down. Several more Brutes joined the fray soon after, equipped with jump packs, and the fighting got even more chaotic.

It was time to join the fight properly. Stepping forward and without a word, she leaped from the Pelican, the craft shifting violently under so much force. She could hear Polk's confused questioning and the cursing of Spice trying to maintain control with such a sudden shift, but it wasn't important.

Directly below her, a Brute had just launched into the air, the twin thrusters on his pack still belching fire and dirty smoke, when the Spartan came down on him with enough force to stop his momentum and drive him back down into the ground. Landing, there was a sickly snap and the crackle of runaway electricity as the thrusters were damaged, shutting off immediately.

Standing from the downed Brute, she shouldered her rifle again and pulled the trigger, side stepping to the right to get into cover even as she kept up the fire. The suppression wasn't doing much, though, and she was still taking hits, her shields going from a low whine to a shrieking blare.

They popped, leaving her exposed the moment she got to cover and sank into the crevice. With her back against the low wall, she glanced back at the strike team, meeting the eyes of an Elite clad in red armor, four mandibles spread slightly as he saw another demon do what they did best.

To the left, the Master Chief's golden visor reflected her, and he had only spared her a glance when he saw the wild yellow arcs of electricity arc across her shield emitters, and seeing she hadn't been hit, his eyes went back to the fight at hand, assault rifle chattering in its nonstop conversation with the enemy.

Looking up, she saw the two Pelicans slowly shifting from side to side to prevent making their rear gunners too much of a target. Polk was hunkered down behind his gunshield, making himself as small as he could. On the other Pelican, she saw the familiar form of Sergeant Major Johnson, cigar clamped between shining white teeth, shuddering against the recoil of the heavy gun.

The cigar in Johnson's mouth dropped, disappearing into the sea of brass shell casings at his feet. " _Look alive, chieftain inbound. Focus fire."_

" _On it, Sergeant Major."_ Polk's answering call was cool and to the point, and with her shielding recharged, Morgan poked over with the stock of her battle rifle resting against the cover she had taken as her own.

On the opposite side of the battleground, a chieftain in black and red armor sprinted out of the doorway that the strike team had likely taken, a gravity hammer held tightly in two massive hands. She felt a frown tug at her face, but that didn't slow her down.

She squeezed the trigger, again and again, and watched as the rounds bounced off of the chieftain's powerful shielding. More hits sparkled across the white barrier, the heavy shot from the twin machine guns on the Pelicans weren't doing much either, it seemed, and the chieftain was only growing faster as he covered the distance, ready to take the heads of Demons and the treacherous Sangheilli alike.

A luminescent blue plasma grenade flew through the air off to her left, catching her eye, and she watched as it sailed past, ready to stick to the massive Brute, when it did something she didn't expect.

The gravity hammer ignited in a flash of blue, coming down in a vicious swing that impacted the ground hard enough for the Spartan to feel it under her boots, and the force of the weapon's gravity manipulator was enough to send the grenade careening back to where it had come from.

It landed behind the cover where one of the Elites had hunkered down, and by then, it was too late for him to evade. In a flash of blue, the Elite disappeared and came out the other side as little more than burned chunks. One of the other Elites, clad in the dark black of a special operations trooper, roared in anger before unloading with his carbine, the rounds pinging off of the chieftain's shields.

This was getting out of hand fast, and they were running out of space between the chieftain and themselves, and with the majority of their fire focused on him, the other Brutes were following close behind and closing the distance.

"Hocus, we're gonna need something a little heavier, please." She called out, and almost immediately, she saw the Pelican swiveling about, Johnson disappearing as it turned far enough.

The woman on the other end didn't respond, but as the ship nosed around, the chin gun on the underside rotated and found an angle, locking onto the chieftain and shifting as the copilot got ready to tear him apart.

It sounded like a drum being beat by the hand of an angry god, the 70mm auto cannon spitting depleted uranium slugs at a high rate of fire, landing all around the Brute as the fire control system attempted to compensate for the weapon's power. One shell hit, eventually, hitting the Brute in the shoulder and spinning him around, taking him down to the ground as the shell skittered away and across the ground in a puff of dust.

That wasn't the end of it, however, and while Morgan shifted targets to keep the rest of the pack at a distance, she saw the Brute tuck and roll, coming up with a pained roar. His shields hadn't popped, but he had felt that.

Cursing, Morgan stood and began to fall back, turning completely to get all of her speed, and she felt several rounds hit her in the back, nearly stumbling her. Her shields whined loudly in her ear at the stress they were taking, but she made it to the line where the rest had hunkered down, only a dozen feet from the edge of the platform and a fall that would likely kill even a Spartan.

The chieftain had continued on, hit again, and again, but his shields flared a bright white, and held against even concentrated fire. He had slowed, jumping to the left and right to throw off the Pelican's fire, but he was still closing faster than she liked.

To her right, the Master Chief sat ready, rifle barking with each shot he took, calmly reloading and shifting targets when another Brute went down, as if he wasn't worried in the slightest. She kept up her own fire, putting a burst through a jump pack Brute's skull and sending it careening over the edge and into the waterfalls below.

"Hocus? He's still coming!" She called out, the hair on the back of her neck standing wherever it could as the Brute bared down even harder on them.

" _He's a tough bastard. Spice, you wanna get in on this? No more air contacts to worry about._ Dawn _'s datalink isn't showing anything."_

_"You got it. Sugar, prep AGMs."_

_"Yeah boss."_

The other Pelican rotated on its axis, the 40mm chin gun it was equipped with spinning up and opening fire on the Brutes in the back, sounding like paper being ripped apart as clouds of dust began to kick up in their line. At least one Brute was torn in half by the withering barrage, but what stole the show was the sound of two Anvil missiles popping free of their launchers in a shriek and riding a cone of fire down to the ground.

Time slowed down as Morgan's eyes honed in on the pair of missiles. One of them missed, barely, and hit just behind the chieftain. It stumbled, and tucked into a roll again, ready to come up and continue pressing them, when the second missile struck home. It hit the chieftain almost directly, covering him in a flash of light and fire so quickly that even she didn't see his demise. When the smoke cleared and time sped back up, the chieftain was little more than a black streak on the ground, carbon scoring having wiped him from existence.

The rest of the Brutes, without their pack leader, roared and started to charge. Retreating would have them killed by their pack, and charging the Humans and their Sangheilli allies would ensure their own Great Journey was fulfilled, if not providing the death of one of the hated Demons.

It was wishful thinking at best, as the twin chin turrets on the Pelicans finished them all of with little fanfare, and the Cartographer finally fell silent as the last echoes of gunfire drifted into the void that surrounded them.

Morgan stood from where she had hidden behind her cover, battle rifle held at loose ready as the nearly spent magazine was ejected and another was slammed home, smoke wafting from the barrel and the open bolt before she snapped it forward and readied another round.

She let herself take a moment to come down from the combat high, the blood thundering in her ears slowly subsiding as she took a deep breath, before letting it out. To her right, the Master Chief stood, turning to her and making his way over.

She turned to face him, the comm link between them still active and strong. "Master Chief, what'd you find here?"

"Truth."

It was short and sweet, but not what she was looking for. "Explain."

"Truth has holed himself up in an area closer to the Ark's core, Spark says he set a barrier in place that we can't break. We'll have to capture sets of barrier control rooms to lower it."

Morgan pursed her lips, her mouth becoming little more than a dark line on pale skin. Things had gotten complicated, but they would figure it out. Nodding to the older Spartan, she opened a new channel. " _Dawn_ Actual, this is Noble."

Keyes' voice crackled through the speaker. " _This is_ Dawn _Actual, go ahead."_

"Cartographer has been found and scanned, and the Master Chief and his strike team will be boarding Pelicans to return to the _Dawn._ ETA no more than 15."

" _Good work, Noble. Bring the Chief to the bridge when you've returned._ Dawn _out."_

With the channel cut on the other end, she looked up towards the Pelicans, slowly lowering to the ground with their bays having turned back towards the ground forces. Staff Sergeant Polk could be seen muttering directions into his microphone, talking Spice down to the deck. In the other bird, Johnson was lighting another cigar, the lines in his face showing slight irritation, but he walked back into the bay and took a seat, sinking into the crash seats in a way that showed his age.

Hocus' bird was the first on the deck, and Morgan waved to the Chief before gesturing to it. The rest of the Elites split into two groups, with the Arbiter and half his force going to the other Pelican.

Stepping into the blood tray of Hocus Pocus, she made for the cockpit. "You get that, Hocus?"

The woman turned from the pilot's seat, fingers still manipulating the controls without looking. "Yes'm. Back to _Dawn_ ricky tick and keep my ears open."

"You got it. Take us home." She shut the cockpit door, sliding into the seat closest to the bulkhead, and directly opposite from Johnson. The Master Chief stood at the open bay, hand latched onto one of the overhead handholds and visor watching as the ground fell away with Hocus feeding power into the engines.

The cherry of Johnson's cigar flared brightly for a moment before dropping back into hiding amongst the newly made ash. Smoke wafted out from around either side of the cigar, teeth clamped down on it to keep it in place. His dark eyes shifted up when he saw the golden visor staring straight at him, pulling the cigar from his teeth.

Smoke came out in puffs as he spoke. "See something you like?" Several of the Elites looked over, the smell of the smoke irritating their enhanced senses.

Morgan tilted her head ever so slightly, but she had become close enough to Johnson to be able to speak a little more candidly around him. Well, close being a relative term. "The fire stick makes pretty colors," she deadpanned.

He chuckled softly, holding it out to her, only to see her hand come up and shake in a negative manner. What he didn't see was her nose wrinkling. She had smelled them before, during her time with ONI, and she had grown to hate the smell of any type of burning tobacco, synthetic or otherwise.

He shrugged. "Suit yourself then."

"How you can stand the stench alone, I'll never know."

He raised an eyebrow, before glancing down at the cigar still held tightly in his fingers. Taking another drag, he held it for a moment before letting it out, snuffing the ember at the tip out and sticking it back into one of the pouches on his armor. "You get used to it."

A snort. "I don't think it would be worth it, Sergeant Major."

He gave her a smile, mangled and deformed as it tried to form around the cigar, but a hint of light in his dark eyes showed it was genuine. "It's not, but too late to quit now."

She shook her head ever so slightly. "Maybe."

The conversation padded off, and he pulled on it once more before crushing the end and hiding it away again. The smoke wafted in dark curls around the front of the bay, lazy circles floating around and dissipating moments later.

Another voice cut in, belonging to Hocus. " _Contacts! All around us!"_

The mechanical voice of 343 Guilty Spark was quick to stop her. " _No! Please do not shoot! These units have a priority task!"_

Morgan stood from her seat, pushing into the cockpit to get a visual. Hocus glanced back quickly, enough to register whoever had entered, before turning back to the canopy. A massive swarm of Sentinels had appeared, surrounding the two Pelicans. "Oh yeah? What in the hell would that be?"

" _I can't be sure for certain, but if you could get me to a terminal, perhaps closer to the core-"_

Morgan's words stopped him. They were too close, and things were on a razor thin edge. "No. We need to stop Truth, stop the firing of the rings. At any cost. Hocus, get us moving."

The other woman looked back again, her gaze staying on the Spartan for another moment before her exposed lips set into a grim line, one of determination. "Aye ma'am."

The Sentinels that had flooded the canopy drifted off to the right as the Pelican turned, engines pushing hard against gravity as the Pelican took to the skies and set out on a return path to the _Forward Unto Dawn_.

* * *

Commander Miranda Keyes crossed her arms, her weight put on her right leg as she leaned back and cocked her hip, a position that didn't exactly comfort her, but with everything going on, her restless energy needed an outlet.

"This is everything you managed to grab?" Her head turned, looking across the figures of Sergeant Major Johnson, Morgan-B312, and John-117, the green armored Spartan standing stock still as the other two followed her with their heads. Her eyes locked onto the ever moving form of 343 Guilty Spark, blue eye humming.

"Not everything, but the important parts. The method to take down the barriers the Meddler has erected and where to do it. The Citadel will likely be where he has taken shelter."

"What's stopping us from glassing the place then?"

The orb turned quickly, as if alarmed. "No! The shield has fully enclosed the Citadel, and even should you manage to penetrate the shielding after prolonged firing, low though the chances are, the defenses will activate, and even your strongest ship will be destroyed!"

Keyes frowned, sighing. "I guess that's out of the question. So we'll have to fight them on the ground?"

Spark bobbed, almost too giddy for the Commander's liking. "Yes!"

She wanted to roll her eyes, but stopped herself. Spark was undoubtedly useful, but that didn't mean she didn't like it. Something about the orb was… unsettling. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, and she had no doubt the others felt the same way, but she couldn't voice those concerns. Not yet at least.

"Put the data up on the holotable, specifically where we need to be. Overlay it with scans from one of the Sangheilli ships still in orbit, see if we can't get a plan set into place."

The monitor bobbed again, and the holotable came to life with full color details, showing a cliffside along a beach with several winding paths into the cliffs nearby, a massive blue shield that climbed several hundred feet into the air before disappearing, and three monolithic towers.

Keyes took a look at it, and after a few moments, an ensign called out that the orbital scans had come in. Several red markers popped into existence on the table, before forming into rough shapes. Several AA Wraiths and blobs indicating infantry forces settled into place, jumping every few seconds as the scans updated.

"These towers, those are what house the control units for the barrier?"

"Yes! They will be heavily defended by the Meddler, but I have seen no interior defenses by my makers. Strange… but ultimately it will facilitate our goal."

Nodding, Miranda pressed her fingers into the three towers she saw, turning them a hostile red. "Anything else?"

The sphere shook to the left and right. "No. This is a workable plan, but crude. We must move quickly, however, for I fear he may have means to activate the array."

Keyes frowned, but she couldn't do anything more than give her orders. Turning to the others, she spoke, voice filled with determination. "Chief, you'll be leading one Marine force to the easternmost tower. After deactivating the tower you'll move to the center and help deactivate it if it hasn't fallen, and it'll be a martialing point for the ground assault to the Citadel."

Looking at Johnson, he crossed his arms. "Johnson, you'll be leading the assault on the central tower and prepping the ground forces when they arrive. We'll shuttled them in via Pelican when you've dropped the towers. The Commander will be deploying with you, I need a Spartan on both teams. The Elites will be taking the western tower with the Arbiter and a full squad of their special operations forces leading the way."

The orders had been cut, given to their executors, and now Keyes' hands were tied. All that was left to do would be to carry it all out. One final push, and everything would be over. They only had one shot at this, and their time was running thin.

"Go, select your men, prep your gear, make sure you've got plenty of ammo. Our transit time is half an hour before we're in range of the Wraiths. You'll deploy then.

A chorus of affirmatives followed, and both Spartans turned on their heels and left. Johnson kept his eyes on her, the dark orbs looking into her own for a moment before he wordlessly pulled a cigar from his pouch and stuck it between his teeth. Then, he turned and followed the other two out.

Keyes felt uneasy already. That last look had held many words, all of them unspoken, but she couldn't ask about it now. There were more pressing matters, and she trusted those she had selected as ground commanders. They would get the job done. If they couldn't do it, then the war had already been lost.


	11. Do Not Go Gently...

" _Masterlock, this is Spooky. We've found something. Messages to a 'Reclaimer', begging for… forgiveness… must be earned. Wait one. 'Atonement' is repeated again and again… it cut out. I think we've- no. It's warning us. Binary. Can we- Oh shit!" **-**_ **Sound of several gunshots, screams, before signal cuts-**

_-_ ONI Recon Team Spooky, final broadcast, immediately prior to the fall of the Citadel's Shield, December 13th, 2552. _Forward Unto Dawn_ comms logs [ **CLASSIFIED]**

* * *

Morgan checked the shotgun in her hands again, racking the slide and working in the oil she had applied during its disassembly and stripping only a few moments before. Several ammunition pouches on her belt were filled with shotgun shells. Slugs, buckshot, flechettes, anything she could find to make the weapon last. Even the shell rack on her chest armor was filled to the brim with more buckshot.

Her battle rifle lay on the table, already completed and ready for battle. Several spare magazines filled an extra ammunition pouch that sat on her thighs, ready to feed into the rifle as soon as it ran dry. The scope was calibrated, the electronics were tested and working, and the rifle had been certified not only by her, but the Master Gunnery Sergeant himself.

He stood off to the side, prepping more weapons and ammo, but glanced over every now and again. All of the Marines had been sent more gear and whatever they would need, but he had been left to continue his work, never completely out of things to do. Watching a Spartan work, however, was something very few got to see without being in the middle of the battlefield.

The smell of gun oil filled the air, and while her helmet filters had kept it away, Master Guns had long ago learned to love it, the almost fruity smell of that particular brand hanging in his nostrils. When the shotgun slid across her backplate and attached with the click that came from the stock sticking to the titanium, he turned completely and leaned back against the table he had been working at.

She heard the brush of fabric from his uniform, the rustle of body armor sliding over it as he slid against the table, arms crossed. Her helmet turned, catching sight of him over the large shoulder plate she wore. Even while she grabbed the BR55 from where it lay, she held it up for a moment before pulling it against her chest. "Thanks for making sure it's ready."

He pursed his lips and held his hand up, shaking his head ever so slightly. "Don't worry about it. Keeps me busy. 'Sides, you need the best with what we're all going into. After you and the rest leave the ship, I won't be in here anyway. Ship's already prepping for general quarters."

She frowned. "They won't get on the ship. Not with the _Intent_ close by."

Master Guns shrugged. "Can't be too careful. Stopped leaving things to chance a long time ago. We should have been safe on the _Cairo_ , but..." another shrug, and Morgan knew what he was getting at.

"Point taken."

The conversation closed, and silence filled the air between them. Tension on the ship had grown stronger as the trip from the Cartographer had gone on, everybody busy readying for the next fight or making sure they were able to make it there. It could be cut with a knife.

Finally, Morgan nodded slowly, almost to herself, and her visor met him again. "You better be here when I get back. I'm gonna need someone to fix my armor."

A hint of a smile flickered across the gruff face, and he made a show of rolling his eyes. "You mess up _my_ armor and you'll wish you hadn't come back." He held his hand out to her and she took it, shaking it as firmly as she could without hurting him. "Stay safe, Commander. Be awful quiet around here without you."

"Likewise, Guns. I'll keep you busy," she promised, her own lips forming into a shallow smile behind the polarized faceplate.

"Get outta here. I got more work to do, and so do you." He kept his arms crossed for a second, before standing and giving her a salute, one she returned without a moment's hesitation.

Then the war called, and she dropped her hand. She left without another word. The Master Gunnery Sergeant had been a familiar face, one she could get along with, trust even, and she dare not think of what it would be like if she returned to a damaged ship and he was gone.

_You know it's never that simple. They got to us. What makes you think they won't get him?_

The Slavic accent had once been one she welcomed, missed even, but the intrusions in her mind now were unwelcome. Morgan frowned deeply, her grip tightening on the pistol grip of the battle rifle. She didn't deign to answer.

Kat had always been a cynic, and even in death, it stung her. She wanted to remember the woman, and the rest of Noble, but with her sister's voice ringing in the confines of her mind, it felt like all they were trying to do was drag her down.

_You don't like me anymore, Morgan?_

Her name had an acidic tone to it, as if Kat's ghost was mocking her. A headache was coming on, one that pounded with every syllable from the dead woman's mouth. "Not _now_ , Kat," she growled into the helmet.

_Why not now? You don't have time for me? So much time apart and now we're together forever, just you, and me._

Kat's words unnerved her, and she shook her head, pushing on quicker. The hangar bay with the Pelicans and their constant noise would drown her sister out. Only a little while longer.

_Ignoring me won't help you. It didn't before, and it won't now._

It would. Morgan would make sure of it. Her mind told her what it was. Her sister was dead, and so were the others. They couldn't do anything to her now. Kat couldn't hold her back or drag her down. Carter, wherever he was, needed to get a handle on his XO once again. But, even were Carter here to add his voice to hers, she knew that Kat would come out on top.

Jorge's words rang in her ears again. _She's always had him dialed in_.

Kat's voice had left an acrid taste in her mouth. Her sister was being tainted by her own emotional state, a shattered mind held together by the rush of the next mission, by the duty that drew her to it, and while she could, she wouldn't blame the dead for her own weakness. Nothing was ever that easy, and she wouldn't take the easy way out regardless.

Things had been easier when she was alone. The quiet, the lack of worrying about casualties friendly or otherwise, being able to move on her own-

With a start, she realized she had been falling back to the old ways, before meeting Noble. Was she really that damaged? That she was willing to throw away everything that had come from them in that month, as bad as it was? That she was willing to rid herself of her reunion with Kat? Of what had been formed with Jorge, Carter, Jun, even Emile?

A hand came up to her chest armor, resting over the place where her tags – as well as Jorge's and Emile's – lay secure against her chest, under the tech suit. _No_. She didn't want to. She had grown to love them all in her own way, even if she had never shown them more than a rare genuine smile or laugh under the dark clouds that had spread across Reach's surface.

The world came back to her with a flash of amber. The status light in her HUD that had belonged to the Master Chief was now lit up, and she whipped around to see he had been standing behind her. _How long had he been there?_

His visor reflected her, tinted gold in the bright white lights of the ship's corridors. A battle rifle hung from his right arm, and the stock of a massive Spartan laser peeked over his shoulder. The light had gone out, but it winked on again, for just a moment.

_Are you alright?_

Without thinking, she flashed the green status light, and was conflicted on it immediately. No. She wasn't alright, but there were no other options. What would come of making him think she was a liability on possibly the biggest operation of the war, the 'make it or break it'? Nothing but a Spartan being left behind when she was needed most.

The unyielding gaze of the older Spartan bore into her like hot plasma, and she felt the weight of his stare on her shoulders. He was the only other Spartan classified as 'hyper lethal', and likely one of the last remaining Spartan IIs, as far as she knew. Quite possibly the last of his kind. They were more alike than she would have thought. Both of them had lost nearly all of their brothers and sisters, the IIs lost to attrition over the last two and a half decades, and almost all of the Beta Company IIIs in a suicide mission that she had only learned about long after its completion.

She kept diving back into her thoughts, as if to escape from the world for just a moment, but Kat dwelled there, waiting for her to let her guard down and seep into her mind once again. She nearly shook her head, but stopped herself. "I'm fine."

The gravely voice that answered was one not entirely certain. "Something on your mind?"

She hesitated for a second. He understood this, how it felt to suffer through loss after loss and keep moving despite how shitty it felt. But the whole story was something for another time, when it wasn't so precious. "Jorge, the others." She would be lying if she told anyone that she had gotten over them.

His olive colored helmet tilted slightly, but he nodded after a moment. "He was something, wasn't he?" The Chief didn't know the rest, not like she had. But he knew Jorge. Jorge was his brother before she was even born, and the big man's original declaration as MIA had likely cut him deep, even if he had grown accustomed to it.

Morgan nodded, her mouth dry and her lips stuck together. She parted them, licking at them in an attempt to form words. "He was. He was always so confident, so sure of things." Her memory flashed back to his resolve being set in stone on that Covenant ship, already tearing his tags off and hoisting her into the air to send her on her way. He had been sure of it all, of his death, long before she had even known what he was doing. Jorge had been old, scarred and broken, and her thoughts used the word tired. _Was this how he felt_?

"He never changed." A low chuckle that she almost didn't catch. "I shouldn't be surprised."

"What do you mean?"

"He was on the friendlier side, always sympathetic to us when we needed it, but he was a mountain when he made his mind up. There was no budging him."

_Don't deny me this_.

A pang shot through her at some of his last words. "No… no there wasn't."

The Master Chief noticed the hesitation, but said nothing. Morgan frowned underneath her helmet. His hand came up, gesturing past her, towards the hangar bay. They had very little time left before launch, and they needed to be there early. She took the way out quickly, turning from him and stepping off, followed close behind by the bigger Spartan.

They walked in silence, the moment between them gone. The Master Chief wasn't a man of many words, and despite her tendency for chattiness, she could respect that. She was even thankful for it. It was all the benefits of being both alone and not alone at the same time with none of the cons.

But she was all too aware of the sound of their boots on the decking, of the scent of her armor and stale sweat, of her tempo in breathing. It irked her more than it ever did before, almost like it had faded away into the background for a time and now it was back, just like Kat was.

She blinked, clearing her head. _Not again._

The doors to the hangar bay stood in front of them, barring their path, but it seemed to think better than to try and stop them, as it slid open with a hiss on their approach.

The hangar was alive with activity. Pelicans were spooled up with troopers finding their birds, deck crew carting ammunition and fuel around on hand trucks and larger movers, and pilots went through start up procedures and checklists for the dozenth time. Nerves were on edge and the air was charged as if a storm had broken out that none of them could see, but all of them could feel. Marines in their green armor loaded up, and ODSTs in their black followed suit, with the two Spartans only adding to it all. Eyes came up from their tasks in alternating sets, most still not used to seeing the fruits of the UNSC's darkest labors in the flesh.

They had stopped at the edge of the bay, and together they looked at each other, sharing glances, and the Master Chief dipped his head in a nod to her. She returned it, her green light winking on as she sent it his way. It was a reassurance, one that didn't require words. He sent one back, and his golden visor left hers, with nothing but his back to look at as he sought out a Pelican.

She frowned slightly, her eyes looking through the assortment of Pelicans that sat waiting, engines hissing and whining. She would be with Hocus again, a pilot she trusted to get her in and out of the field without having to bail out of a flaming wreck.

Hocus Pocus sat off to the left, and would be one of the first to deploy from the bay. It sat next to the bulky, mutated form of a Pelican Gunship, and she looked the gunship over as she passed it by and moved into the bay of her transport. The door to the cockpit was open, and inside she saw Hocus' back, the woman hunched over the control panel with her arms moving across it and prepping it.

Morgan's steps grew loud, deliberately trying to catch Hocus' attention, and the woman glanced up for a moment. "Commander," she greeted, voice low as she turned back to the controls.

Stepping through the door, the copilot came into view on the left, and looked over at the Spartan as well, giving the same greeting as Hocus did, before Morgan turned to the pilot.

"You good, Hocus?"

A snort. "Cold as ice, ma'am, just going through it all again. Sure don't wanna miss nothin'."

"No, no. It'll be hairy flying in with those Wraiths up. You gonna stay cold when the air gets hot?"

Hocus finished the section she was working on, turning back a bit more with what could have been a raised eyebrow. "You come for a pep talk?"

Morgan smiled slightly behind her helmet as the woman's accent fell across her ears more fully. "Maybe. If you get scared I can get us there."

A crooked grin crossed the pilot's face, but her eyes remained hidden behind the visor she wore on her helmet, always in the down position. "Not on your life. She's a tough bird to fly, and she'll claw at you if you don't treat her right."

"Let's hope you're in the generous mood then." Morgan's smile lowered, and she changed topics. "You look over the drop zone?"

Hocus' mouth did the same, little more than a line in her face. "Yeah, right on the edge of the water, 'bout a mile east and hidden behind the cliffside it's on. Supposed to be a path through the rock to get up to the platform on it. I'd get ya closer, but..." She shrugged. "It's a bit more open than tower three and the Wraiths are in some heavy fighting positions. Keyes' said there might be fixed wing support but given how heavy the defenses are, don't count on it."

Morgan frowned. "I'm not, much as I'd like to."

"Me neither, makes for a nice surprise when they do show up." Hocus' smile flashed back into place for a moment, but she gestured to the cockpit panel. "I'm gonna run through this again, and we should be ready for departure not long after."

The Spartan nodded, turning away and moving back into the bay where the crew chief had boarded, making sure the gun hanging from the ceiling was mounted properly and armed. He didn't look up from his work, and Morgan made her way to the rear of the bay, sinking into one of the seats directly adjacent to the ramp. The crew chief looked up then, but didn't spend much time, other than greeting her with another "ma'am."

She nodded to him, but didn't say anything. The next person to join her on the Pelican was Johnson, any hint of joking or merriment gone from how he had been when they had first met on the Cairo. He seemed to have aged a decade since then, and he looked tired. She understood that, she _felt_ that. But she couldn't say that to him. Not now, not to anyone really. They had both seen too much, with what happened on Halo, and likely the encounters with the Flood. A tinge of gray was starting to creep in at the bottom of his sideburns, and a hint of shade had grown in around his cheeks and jaw. A set of bags hung below his eyes, and they didn't have the spark she'd learned to associate with him in them.

He looked over, noticing her visor pointed squarely at him, before it seemed to flare back to life. The spark was in his eyes again, and he saw a hint of a smile. It took some of the years off of him, almost, and despite not knowing he had, he had locked eyes with her, even through the visor. The brim of his patrol cap covered most of his face, but it was there. She felt something she couldn't describe, as if it was a breath of fresh air.

What was this? Johnson had always been friendly to her, despite the stigma that surrounded Spartans. Stacker, the Master Gunnery Sergeant, Hocus, all of them had given her the time of day without that aura of distrust or disgust. None of them saw her as a robot or anything other than simply Human. But Johnson had been one of the first non-Spartans to be as open with her as he had been. She hadn't seen his interactions with the Master Chief, but she had no doubt he was the same with the other Spartan.

She nodded to him, and he nodded back, his eyes disappearing behind the visor of his patrol cap before he broke off from the gaze they had shared. Whatever it was that had been there in the black man's eyes stayed there this time as he pulled the battle rifle on his back into his arms and crossed them around the pistol grip and the stock before sitting back and settling in.

But then the relative silence of their little moment was taken away by new entrants, Marines clad in green armor stepped up the ramp and found their seats, talking animatedly to themselves before they all noticed the Spartan, watching them quietly. One swallowed as he sat across from her in the second seat over. "Ma'am." The Australian accent was thick, noticeable even in the basics of the words his lips formed.

"Corporal," she returned, her voice neutral through the armor's speakers. The other three Marines that had filed on with him were silent, none of them looking in a way that met her eyes, but more like stealing glances. All of them were privates, save for the Australian, and Johnson sat watching on the opposite end of the bay from beneath his cap's visor.

Sharing a look with the Australian, Morgan eventually broke it and looked out the window again as the Marines began chattering quietly among themselves, not thinking she would hear them, but whatever she heard, she ignored.

In the distance, she saw the Master Chief in another Pelican, sitting just as she was but with his arms on his knees keeping him held up. Several ODSTs sat with him, but one had his helmet off, and she could see it was Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Stacker. He didn't look over at her, busy talking with the other troopers in his bird. She frowned slightly. Would he survive this fight like he had survived Earth, Halo, and all the rest? Johnson and Keyes had, but it wasn't like it mattered that just because they survived one thing, they would survive another, and this was the end of the war. This would be the hardest nut to crack, the final nail in the coffin. She had a feeling that it wouldn't just be the Covenant's coffin being nailed shut, but the coffins for more than a few of the men and women moving out to assault the Citadel.

But if there was anything stopping them from leaving the ship now, it was too late to stop. The lights in the hangar bay turned flashed, and warning alarms blared as sirens started filling the air with their wail. Keyes' voice came over the overhead speakers.

" _This is it. This is the last push. All of you going out there today will be making history, finishing what our parents and grandparents started. We will be fighting with all of our friends and family at our backs, fighting for the loss of all of the Humans that were killed by the Covenant, and fighting to stop any more of us from dying. We will fire the last bullets, give the last orders, and we will be the last Humans to live under threat of the Covenant as we have for so many years. Pilots, contact flight ops, get your tasking, and get out there. Good luck, everyone, and may God be with you."_

The Marines in the hangar bay began to cheer, screams and whistles going up as they all soaked in the motivational speech that had been given. It was all they had at this point. All of them were tired of the war, of the death it had brought, and if their leaders had anything left to give, it was motivation to keep pushing through, even if they were waist deep in the suck.

Morgan felt the engines gain power, and Hocus Pocus took off along with four other Pelicans, two of them carrying Warthogs and another being the monster gunship that had been waiting. Morgan stood and grabbed the hand hold at the top of the bay, watching out the back as the _Forward Unto Dawn_ fell away and drifted off to the side.

Staring out from the bay, with nothing but the Ark's arms and the endless ocean ahead of her to keep her eyes occupied, she waited for what might be her last fight.

* * *

The surf had picked up, waves rising several feet high before collapsing on themselves, disturbed even further by the force of a flight of Pelicans and twin Phantom dropships passing just feet over the water. Morgan wanted nothing more than to take her helmet off, to feel the sea spray hit her face and wash away the tiredness. But she didn't dare to take her helmet off.

The comm in her ear squawked, and she could see the crew chief next to her hanging on to the gun, scanning even before targets had come in sight. " _Closing on drop zone, break."_ Hocus' voice was calm and steady as she gave the order, and the two Pelicans moving for the first tower split off to the right, the Master Chief's monolithic form standing strong against the backdrop of the bay. The Phantoms on the other side broke left, drives pulsing and whining as their pilots switched course. That left just Hocus Pocus and another Pelican to hit the center, with the gunship hanging back to act as a quick response force.

The pilot she had rode with earlier, Spice, was next on the radio. " _Moving for Tower Delta. Be advised,_ _Delta Approach has active triple A."_

In the distance, the explosions of the first salvo of anti aircraft fire could be seen popping in blots of green, the sound taking several seconds to reach the force of Pelicans moving for Tower Beta. Then she saw it.

One shot was close enough that it hit the rear Pelican, carrying the Warthog for the Delta strike group, knocking out the left rear thruster and sending it forward, impacting the rear of Spice's Pelican and nearly dragging both of them out of the sky.

" _Mayday mayday mayday! Gamma Two One is hit! I can't control her!"_ It had already lost altitude, the nose flaring up at the series of impacts as it tried to go in for a somewhat safe landing, but it didn't matter. Morgan could see it from here as Spice called in that a Pelican had gone down. It landed hard, the left side of the craft digging into the ground and sending it into a roll as it caught fire, tearing itself apart and leaving it to smash into the side of the cliff.

She winced. Nothing could have survived that, and nobody would be able to respond quickly enough. The Wraith that had downed Two One was close, far too close to deal with properly, even for the gunship. The Master Chief had already touched down, and she saw him leap from the back of the craft and join the firefight before the whole area was hidden behind the cliff.

"Hocus, are we going to take any fire?" She asked, looking back at the sealed door to the cockpit.

" _Negative, Commander. We should be safe. Triple A is concentrated closer to the tower and we're hidden in the rocks. We'll be touching down in 20_ _seconds_ _, get ready."_

Morgan turned her head, seeing the Marines had heard it, and were all readying themselves. Johnson had stood from his place on the bench, a battle rifle in his hands, and moved up to stand just behind her.

The Pelican dropped altitude, flared its nose, and settled into a hover just off the ground. " _Hit it, Marines!"_

The Spartan was the first off the bird, the airframe shuddering slightly before the rest were off and in a pattern, ready to engage whatever awaited them. The Pelican whined loudly, Hocus feeding power to the engines and forcing it into the air. " _Kilo Two Three is out. Gunship is on station and ready for tasking, callsign Warlock. Good luck out there."_ The other Pelican, having discharged its men, did likewise.

Morgan shouldered her rifle and turned to look at the path that led through the cliffs. It was steep but clear of obstacles, and she moved for it, the rest in tow. "I read you, Hocus. Get scarce. I'll call when we need pickup."

The Marines followed closely, scanning different areas. Johnson was just behind her and to her right. The second squad was a dozen feet to the left, all of them mirroring the movements of the first. In the lead was Gunnery Sergeant Reynolds, who she hadn't seen since Voi, but now wasn't the time for a reunion.

They moved up the path quickly, almost all of their weapons focused front as she led the way. One of the Marines, the Australian she had rode with, muttered over the radio. "I don't like this."

Morgan looked back for only an instant, and he shut up. "None of us do, corporal, but jinxing us won't do us any favors. Stow the chatter."

He didn't respond, and she kept her weapon pointed up the slope until they crested it. She held her hand out to keep the rest back, Johnson being the only one to move up with binoculars in hand. Her visor magnified her view automatically, and Johnson looked through the binoculars, spotting the tower ahead. Three Wraiths were buried in the cliffside, all but the pilot's hatch and the gun assembly exposed. They would be difficult to dig out. Brutes, Grunts, and Jackal snipers sat waiting, watching for Humans to approach.

Morgan frowned. "Defenses aren't exactly light. All they're missing is a Hunter pair."

Johnson rapped against her shoulder with the back of his hand. "Didn't you just say not to jinx it?"

She looked over at him. "True. Let's get moving. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

A mile of rocky pathways and an unknown amount of possible contacts meant that it would take time to get to their objective, and time was running out. Morgan led the way, with Johnson right behind her the whole time.

It was nerve wracking for the Marines, but she wasn't immune to it. Her blood was pounding through her veins, sounding in her ears, and her adrenaline was running high, but she kept an outward appearance of icy calm. Her armor betrayed nothing, her face hidden behind steel and the golden visor. She was a figurehead behind which to stand against the storm that hadn't abated for 27 years.

The path carried on, going deeper inland and dropping deeper into the walls that rose up to cover them in sheltering rock, artificial or otherwise. Even now, Morgan could hear the sounds of banshees screaming overhead and the sound of Pelican and Broadsword engines mixing into it all, the roar of gunfire clashing against the whine of plasma.

Ahead, a weapons emplacement crewed by a Grunt and supported by a Brute, a Jackal sniper, and a gaggle of other Grunts stood waiting for them, and the flash of the monocular purple scope the Jackal wore glinted in the sun before its rifle fired, and Spartan-B312 was back in the fight.

* * *

A twenty minute fire fight had ensued, the first shot of the battle coring one of the Marines and ending him before he even knew what had happened. They had fought for every inch of ground, and reinforcements for the Covenant force were quick to respond, as if they had been waiting for contact. Now, down three Marines and hunkered behind a rock, Morgan called for support.

"Warlock, Sierra 312, requesting fire support on Tower Beta approach, troops in contact, three KIA. Danger close," she called, peering over the cover she had claimed and putting another group of shots into one of the Brutes that had gotten too close. The rounds popped his armor off and several Marines jumped up to finish the ape off.

" _Warlock copies, inbound hot. Keep your head down, we'll clear 'em out. Stand by, ETA one mike."_

The channel cut and Morgan bound out of cover to a new rock a dozen feet up the path. They had made it about a hundred feet, moving only when they could, person by person. Johnson had been her task master, working with Reynolds to get a move off when fire slacked off just enough while she spearheaded the way, drawing fire and attention in a way only a Spartan could.

The next minute slowed to a crawl for almost all of them. A minute in a heated fire fight was an eternity, and the sound of Warlock's engines overhead was like the chorus of an angel, come to bail them all out.

Morgan didn't hear the two pilots inside, but she didn't need to. In an instant, the 30mm rotary cannon opened up, dumping tungsten cored rounds into the pathway and the enemies in sight at a rate of 2,000 rounds per minute, faster than the speed of sound. Each round kicked up dust until a maelstrom of rock and bits had taken to the air. Morgan sat hunkered in cover, listening to the sound of the gun as it did its grisly work, and a ten second sustained burst came to a sudden halt. All incoming fire had disappeared, and she knew it was her chance.

"Warlock, Sierra 312 advancing, check fire, check fire."

" _Copy 312, weapons safe. We'll watch your back until we're called away._ "

Pumping her arm in a waving motion towards the dust storm that still hung in the air, she slipped out of cover and reloaded her weapon, even as she sprinted ahead. Johnson and Reynolds barked their orders, cracking the whip and taking the lead as they struggled to keep up with the war machine that led the way. She was in the dust and had already transitioned to her VISR system before they were even halfway there, and her weapon started its dirty work again.

Brutes half dead and ripped apart by the massive cannon on the gunship lay holding weapons, and without a second glance at any of them she finished them off. Grunts and Jackals hadn't fared anywhere near as well as the Brutes, but it had been a blessing for them, gone in an instant. As she pushed even further, she saw that a Hunter pair had been caught moving up to the front, and even their heavy armor had failed against the withering barrage that Warlock had put out. Rivers of orange, purple, and blue ran down both sides of the pass, staining the rocks as Morgan came out the other side of the slowly thinning cloud, trails of smoke and dust swirling around her armor.

Half a mile away, the tower rose up, no longer hidden by the cliff at this point. Down a winding slope, several more emplacements sat waiting for them, likely with more squad support. They could advance on foot under cover of the foliage hanging down and providing shade, but it wasn't all that helpful. With Wraiths having a clear shot over the water, however, there would be no way for Warlock to offer any support at this junction. She cursed softly to herself. "Warlock, hang back. Wave off and shift to support Delta. Wraiths will tear you apart if you come over."

" _Affirm. We'll be around if you need us. Be advised, Masterlock has confirmed fixed wing support is up_ _and around Tower Delta_ _, callsign Ranger. Call on them if you need them, they'll be a lot better at not getting popped than us. Warlock out."_

With the gunship no longer effective, Morgan frowned deeply. She had the chance to call in Ranger, the squadron she had flown with when they had made planetfall, and while they would be harder to hit with their speed and maneuverability, she didn't want to risk throwing them into the killing field that the Wraiths could throw up together. It would be a meat grinder.

The whine of Warlock's engines grew quiet as the gunship fled, and she waved her men forward, her helmet speakers activating. "Warlock is out of the game. We're on our own from here on out. If it gets bad enough, we'll call for Ranger for close air support, but..." She gestured to the Wraiths. "Not a very good idea unless we want to fish them out of the drink when they get shot down."

Johnson grunted. "We'll make it work. We have to."

"We always do. Got any ideas?"

He looked over at her, and she tore her gaze from the path they needed to take. Pulling several grenades from his belt, he took one of the larger pouches from his vest and emptied several cigars from it, leading to the Spartan quirking her eyebrow. The cord that had tied the pouch in place came with it, and he looped the cord through the pins of the grenades before tying it off in a loop that held the pins but still gave several inches to hold. Holding it out for her to take, he looked to the rest, pointing at two in particular. "Jackson, Buntis, do the same. We'll blast our way through."

He looked back over to her as the Marines went about their work. She tilted her head slightly. "Are you always this innovative?"

He gave her a crooked grin. "When I wanna be. You have anything better, share with the class."

She held her hands up in defense. "No, no, no. Yours is fine. We'll move as soon as the other two have been made." She brought her hands back down and looked over the pouch. She would need to be careful, lest she risk pulling the cord early on a snag. Sliding it into the hard case that hung at the front of her waist, she slipped the cord in with it and snapped it shut.

Jackson and Buntis had finished, and following her lead, had secured the pouches to their armor, waiting for her to give the order to either throw them or hand them over.

She looked them all over, and satisfied, gave the order. "Let's move. Stick close to the right wall, try and stay out of sight of the guns while we can." Leading the way, she set off. The foliage thickened as they went on, mostly vines and chains of leaves hanging down in their path. She could make out bits and pieces of the first gun emplacement. They hadn't opened up yet, despite the assault they had already done, so at least they had that going for them.

The first emplacement was just ahead after a few moments of pushing. Pulling the pouch from her armor, she peeked around the corner, spotting a Grunt watching the top of the path. Either he had been looking elsewhere during their descent or had fallen asleep, but he would have ripped them to shreds if he had known.

With her rifle held in the crook of her right arm, she held the cord with her right hand, and yanked. The sound of several _chink_ s was enough to catch the Grunt's attention, and all movement by the Brute squad that sat ready and waiting ceased. Time seemed to freeze and sound stopped as she reared back and launched the pouch.

It flew true, hitting the Grunt in the chest with enough force to make him cough into his mask and clutch at his chest. Now, sitting in his lap, the pouch was a time bomb with all of its time run out. Three, two, one. The grenades inside all detonated, ripping the unsuspecting Grunt to shreds and blowing the hovering turret into what looked like a bloomed metallic flower. It fell onto the tripod holding it and rolled off. Shrapnel pinged off of the rocks, sounding like bullets as puffs of dust just beside her foot kicked up.

"Now! Engage!" She called, stepping into the open with her rifle back in her hands. The Brutes had been stunned by the blast, their shields close to blowing if not completely gone, and two of them were dropped in short order with their armor off. Shrapnel continued its wild ride through the canyon, hitting her shields and bouncing off. One of the Brutes, still in his armor somehow, charged. He had to have known he was already dead, charging two full squads of Marines, but it didn't seem to matter. He made a bee line for one of the Marines, and the man panicked.

But the Brute never made it. Its charge was arrested only a half dozen feet from the man as a blue armored arm whipped out like a cobra and clotheslined the big alien. Morgan grunted against the strain that the Brute put on her, but stopped it before it could get its feet back and return the favor. A wrench of her arm and a louder grunt and she felt the Brute's neck snap.

Now, limp in her arm, she dropped it and went back to firing her rifle one handed as she pulled the pistol from her thigh and put a single bullet in the Brute's head to make sure it wouldn't get back up.

Spikes started coming in like hail, a wall of metal that would be more than enough to finish her shields off now that the enemy had gotten their wits about them. Another roared as a plasma grenade took to the air.

"Grenade!" She spun right, back behind the cliffside as she tried to take cover in the bend. Johnson and the rest ceased fire immediately, all of them backtracking to get distance from the grenade. Morgan watched as it came down next to the Brute she had executed, far too close for comfort, but she already heard a swarm of footsteps stampeding her way.

_Not good_.

She put one more burst out to try and stop the approaching enemies, but it wouldn't matter, and she turned her back on the grenade to get some distance herself, given where it landed, but she wasn't fast enough.

It blew and her shields began to wail as she was taken off of her feet. They had already been weakened, and now they had broken. She could feel the heat on her back, and the alarm in her ears was nearly deafening. Landing on her stomach, she rolled over quickly, the first Brute coming around the corner with a spiker raised and ready to fire. He got one shot off before his head snapped back, a red mist filling the air.

The spiker round nearly glanced off of her armor, but embedded itself in the shotgun shell rack on her chest. Her weapon was gone, laying on the ground somewhere behind her. She grimaced and glanced up at the next pair that came through.

"Suppressing!" Johnson's voice filled the air, hard and commanding. Battle rifles firing on full auto sent a rattle across the stone walls, and bullets filled the air. The 9.5mm rounds, some of the most modern in the UNSC, closed the distance in an instant, and dozens impacted the Brutes shields as the two were focused by the entire oversized squad of Marines in support of their downed Spartan. Both lost their shields, and then their armor, in the span of a few heartbeats, before being riddled with bullets.

They went down with barely a fight, and Reynolds crowed another order. Marines thundered past her, weapons ready and boots scraping against stone. They took up positions to cover her, and their weapons sang again in defiance of the Brutes that still survived. Johnson was on her next, battle rifle in hand as he set it against her chest in a way that let her grab it and get it ready. A short inspection showed nothing but scratches on the matte black finish, and she grunted as she forced herself to her feet.

"Thanks," she started, listening to her shields charge. "Saved my ass with that one."

"I'd say you owe me, but the list is long enough. Let's keep going, we're getting behind on the time table already."

He was right. If one team got behind, it left the others open to reprisal and slowing the whole operation down. The Spartan took up position behind the Marines and tapped the lead's shoulder. "I've got point."

He glanced back over his shoulder and nodded to her, letting her slip past him and falling in behind the big woman. Reynolds took up the rear, and Johnson was in the middle. The next emplacement was just ahead, where the ground rolled up in jagged ledges that broke up the smooth ascent before topping off and dumping into the next kill zone.

Grimacing, she held her hand out to Jackson, she flexed her fingers, looking back over her shoulder at him. Wordlessly, he passed her the next satchel of grenades, and she hooked it onto her armor like before.

She led the way up the next rise, hands on her weapon and her eyes open, ready to respond to anything.

Her comm crackled, and she frowned. " _Tower Delta has been reached. Noble, status?"_ It was Keyes.

"Less than half a mile to Beta entrance, Masterlock. We're having trouble with emplacements set in kill boxes with infantry support."

" _Understood, I'll see what I can spare. Wait one."_

Morgan let the channel hang, still pushing ahead to peek over the slope at the summit of the rise. Her visor reflected the scene ahead. Two turrets had been set up, one likely moved closer to have better odds of repelling the UNSC force. A pair of Hunters and a whole squad of Brutes were waiting, all of them hunkered down behind a mobile barrier field. She grimaced as she looked it all over. She _might_ have a chance, but the Marines would be ripped to shreds by such a force.

Cursing softly, she hunkered back down. "Masterlock, requesting support. Enemy dug in behind a barrier field with times one Hunter pair and Shade turrets. We're not getting through this with current forces."

Keyes' voice was slow to respond, but when it did, Morgan felt a little bit of relief. " _I have something for you._ _Distance between you and the barrier field?"_

Another peek back over. "130 meters to barrier field, almost exactly."

" _Hang tight, deploying what we have left of Archer missiles to deal with triple A. After this, Ranger will be on station. Break."_ A beat passed. " _Archers away. Impact in 30. Masterlock out."_

Morgan bit her lip, looking back at her squad. "Masterlock is dealing with the anti-air, then we'll have fixed wing support, and likely Warlock again. Johnson, got smoke?"

Another grenade came from his belt, this one a canister that would send out a bank of blue smoke. "I got two blue, two red. Make 'em count"

The words he used had Jorge flashing in her memory, filling her vision and sending a chill down her spine that she clamped down on. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She fought the vision down, squeezing her eyes shut tightly before opening them again and taking the grenade, hoping he hadn't seen anything.

If he had, he didn't show it. She couldn't see over the wall where the tower lay, but she heard it. The shriek of Archer missiles passed by overhead, a series of sonic booms washing over the squad before a wave of explosions sounded.

" _Noble, Masterlock. One Wraith remains. It's dug in tight, no way we're getting to it. You'll have to take it down on your own, but it should open up the air space enough to start sending Ranger in. Masterlock out."_

Morgan didn't answer, looking down at the grenade as she switched gears. "Ranger, this is Beta Actual, Noble, requesting fire support, over."

The smooth voice of Ranger's lead, Caesar, sounded in her ears. " _Ranger is orbiting Tower Delta, air to ground ordinance has been mostly expended, but guns are green. That do the job?"_

Peeking over the slope again, Morgan saw the Covenant forces were still dug in hard, apparently not willing to risk breaking their defensive line on the chance of taking a Demon head on. "It should weaken them, or at least daze them. Popping blue smoke, Ranger. Keep fire north of the smoke. IFF broadcasting. Try not to mow us down, Caesar."

A low laugh. " _Ranger copies all, Noble. Keep your head down if you don't want it shot off. Ranger One out."_

Morgan dropped down to the ground, resting on her right hip to keep her silhouette low as she peeked over the hill again. The grenade in her hand lit up with a soft puff as she yanked the pin and blue smoke started to billow out of it. Waving the Marines back, she sat, and she waited.

In the distance, the sound of thunder rose in her ears, and she hoped it would be enough to break through.

The waiting was always the worst part, seconds stretching on until they were minutes or hours, and Spartan time only made it worse. Overhead, a pair of twin shadows came over her, covering her for only an instant, before the sound of the Broadsword's autocannons filled the air with a drum beat that rumbled off of the walls of the canyon. Morgan's eyes stayed locked on to the shielding as it withstood several rounds before failing completely, and everything beneath was left open to the withering barrage of 35mm high explosive shells. Brutes and Grunts were ripped apart completely by the impacts, or shredded by the shrapnel. The Shade emplacements were holed and tipped over, obscured by the geysers of dirt that were kicked up. Screams fought to be heard before going quiet forever. Even the Hunters, hunkered down behind their armor, could only last so long. She watched as one struggled to withstand the fire, the shield sparking and denting as it stood against the incoming fire.

But it wouldn't be enough. Eventually, a shell got through and the Hunter must have taken it in the midsection, being torn in half by a shell that exploded in its soft, exposed areas. The second Hunter went the same way as its kin, roaring in anger and pulling its shield up to try and rush up the canyon's path before it, too, was blown to the wind.

The whine of the Broadsword's engines increased in pitch, twin columns of flame spouting from the rear of both fighters as they waved off back towards Delta to escape from the Wraith that was attempting to get shots off on them, green tracers trying to find one and blow it apart before exploding harmlessly in the air.

With smoke and dust filling the air, and the groans of the nearly dead rising up out of the clouds that had been left, Morgan gave the order.

"Move up, slow. Some of them aren't dead yet, and we don't need a suicide bomber." her mind flashed back to the groups of Grunts that had charged her in New Alexandria, back on Reach. They had ignited plasma grenades in each hand and rushed her as fast as their stubby legs would carry them. Many even nearly made it to her as her pistol racked empty, her entire body wailing in protest after her less than stellar descent from orbit.

She pushed it out of her mind, her rifle up and tucked against her shoulder as Johnson and Reynolds shepherded the men forward. At least one Brute groaned, raising a spiker with a shaky arm that was leaking blood at an alarming rate, his lower half missing completely. The bark of a single shot from her rifle put him the rest of the way into the ground. Craters from the high explosive shells pitted the area, rivers of blood flowing through the stone as she moved with her weapon up.

There were a few stragglers, but none with enough strength to fight back, and they all went the way of their comrades, scattered to the winds.

Less than half a mile to the tower now, and the wall curved left, revealing an open plain. The left side led back towards the cliff and the beach below, the right pushing off for a short distance before another cliff face rose up to block it off. All that was left was to traverse the open ground to the tower and hope they weren't engaged by enemy air.

She turned to the others. "Lotta open ground. We'll need to cover it quick."

Johnson frowned, eyes narrowing as he gazed across the open terrain. "It ain't pretty no matter how you slice this. Not many options."

Morgan glanced back to him, before returning her eyes to the treeline at the far end, the tower rising up on the other side. She could see the front end from here, where a Phantom hovered, dropping off another squad of Brutes that disappeared into the structure. "Might have company soon too. Wait for the Phantom to bug off, then we move."

Johnson didn't argue. "You heard her, Marines! Get ready!"

Several of the Marines tightened their grips on their weapons, none of them wanting to be left behind in an all out sprint, especially not across open terrain. Snipers could be waiting in the treeline, and while Morgan didn't see the tell tale glint of a Jackal's optic, she wasn't writing them off.

She waited, tensed like a cobra, barely peeking around the edge while the marines waited behind her. When the Phantom slowly lifted into the air and started moving towards the tower assigned to the Elites, she sprung.

"Go!" A deep divot in the ground was kicked up as she stepped onto the soil that covered the plain, the Marines scattering to either side of her and pumping their arms and legs as fast as they could. She outpaced them easily, the first to make it to the other side, her weapon up and scanning for targets, but nothing stood out.

The rest of the unit was on her six several seconds later, Marines huffing and puffing at the sprint they had been forced into, and even Johnson seemed winded, but his weapon was up and his eyes sharp. The tower rose through the trees, erupting out of the ground ahead, and already she could see two more Shade turrets sitting at the ground entrance, a Brute and a squad of Grunts waiting around the opening and the surrounding area. She took aim with her weapon, speaking into the comm link. "Mark targets, wait for my go."

The scope of the battle rifle rested on the Grunt operator's head, and Johnson's mark sat on the other one. Marines picked their targets, Reynolds muttering in their ears about doubling up on the Brute.

Satisfied they were all ready, she pulled the trigger. "Execute".

An over strength squad of Marines firing battle rifles at the same time was like thunder, the rounds bleeding together into a cacophony that ensured everything went down quick. The Brute had just enough time to be surprised before his armor had popped off and his head was taken from his shoulders. Bullets riddled the hairy corpse, and smoke wafted up from some areas, but Morgan was already out of the treeline and moving to make sure nothing else manned the turrets if reinforcements came out, her rifle going to her back and the shotgun taking its place.

She racked the slide halfway, ensuring a shell was ready, and saw the shine of brass, before she tore her gaze away and aimed for the door. The door was clear, and Johnson and Reynolds barked their orders as they slid down the embankment.

"Stack up on the door, go, go!" Johnson's deep voice was louder and more authoritative, but Reynold's own was a crow that all of them heard loud and clear.

Morgan's left shoulder butted against the bulkhead, Johnson behind her and half the squad either ready to go or covering their rear, same for Reynolds and the other half. The door was shut, and she started to wonder if she'd need to force her way in, but she wouldn't need to, and the door slid open as time slowed down.

_I'm ready! How 'bout you!?_

Emile's last words rang in her ears, as if he had shouted them directly against her skull rather than alone on top of the MAC gun he had rode until the end. Her adrenaline spiked, her heart rate climbed through the roof, and she felt that pit in her stomach form as she slid around the door and directly into a Brute. The shotgun's barrel pushed up against his chest, and she pulled the trigger.

Anything behind the Brute was covered in bits and pieces of the big alien, and a squad of Grunts stood motionless, unable to respond to the rapid assault that had been thrust upon them.

_Chick chack_.

The shotgun racked, the smoking shell glinted in the overhead lights, a Grunt learned the meaning of pain for only an instant.

_Chick chack._

Another shell went into the chamber, and another Grunt went down as Marines flooded in behind her, splitting off and clearing the left and right halls that fanned out from the doorway, and green eyes stared straight down the center corridor as a squad of Brutes sat open mouthed, spikers raising and getting ready to open fire.

_Chick chack_.

The shotgun's action was music to her ears, and she wished she had been able to keep Emile's own, or to have taken that long blade of his from his shoulder piece. Just as Emile had honored Jorge with it, she would have honored Emile. But this was the best she could do, and she hoped that he approved.

Kat didn't interfere this time, not even to give Morgan the benefit of Noble Four's approval. As the trigger came back again and spit buck shot out and into the first Brute from a range that was barely enough to do real damage, Morgan didn't know whether or not she should be relieved or upset.

It didn't matter in the end. She would get this barrier down one way or another, end all of this for the rest of Noble, the rest of Humanity. She would finish this war or die trying.

Battle rifle fire picked up on either side of her, the heavy shot doing more than enough with a dozen Marines firing on the Brute squad. Each Brute went down with few problems, but one of the Marines did the same, a spiker round hitting him in the throat and dropping him like a sack of rocks. Another slowed down to check on the Marine, but Reynolds called out, forced him to keep moving. "He's dead! Don't stop or you will be too!"

One, a Captain, judging by the horned helmet he wore, held a Brute shot. His enhanced armor protected him long enough to get the heavy weapon up, pulling the trigger twice before his shields broke and he fell like the rest of his compatriots. One shot flew off to the left, impacting the wall behind Morgan, the second one hitting too close to a Marine and knocking him off his feet.

The Marine landed face up, unmoving. It hadn't hit him directly, but already she could see blood pooling around the trooper, his eyes locked open and dark behind the tinted half visor he wore on his helmet. Reynolds was quick to move in and check his pulse, but shook his head and moved away quickly. None of them saw it outright, but the fragmentation from the Brute shot was more than enough to tear dozens of holes in the Marine's back, killing him before he even hit the ground.

Morgan didn't stop to look, ushering herself forward as much as the two sergeants did to the Marines. Ahead, a bridge composed of glass and the same metal that Forerunners seemed to favor in their architecture passed over an open area, closing the gap between two ramps that led to an upper area. A hole in the ceiling led upwards, towards the top of the tower, and she could hear the sound of an elevator coming down. The deep hum bothered her, something she could hear, just barely, that made her think it wasn't even there. She ignored it.

When the elevator came down, the entire squad had just moved into two groups, splitting up to go up either ramp, only to be met by another Hunter pair. These were armored in that same golden armor she had seen on Earth during the push to the anti-air battery.

One was already charging its arm cannon, the other hunkered down to protect its kin's exposed rear. She gave the order to scatter, but it was too late. On the right side, the green ball of heavy plasma hit the lead section of Reynold's half of the squad. Leading the way up, the Gunny hadn't even had time to react, being hit dead on and simply ceasing to exist as the shot engulfed him in green plasma and radiation, leaving nothing behind but carbon scoring on the ground where his boots had been. The Marine just behind him went the same way almost, but when the green light faded, half of his body was gone, and he fell to the ground without a sound.

Another Marine behind him began to scream, firing his rifle on fully automatic. The man behind him struggled to stop it, grabbing the new lead by the back of his armor and jerking him into cover, rounds pinging off the ceiling until the magazine ran dry, but the screams never stopped. The man, laying on the ground, was already suffering from the intense heat the shot had put off, his skin reddening and peeling off like a severe sunburn. Blisters could already be seen across his neck and face, even from this distance.

The Hunter, hidden behind the massive slab of steel it used for a shield, stood and readied its weapon as it switched roles with its kin. Morgan knew that if another round came in like that, the Marines would be decimated, and she made the only move she could in the split second she had.

She charged.

The Hunter didn't falter, and neither did she. The weapon continued to glow green, intensifying with every passing moment. Her hand came up against the pouch she had set on her waist, her shotgun being tossed behind her where it slid off the edge and to the floor below.

The Hunter fired, and she tucked down to the ground. Wherever the shot went, she didn't know, only that it didn't hit her. She came up out of her roll, the pouch in her armored fist as she punched forward with all the force she could muster, hand meeting resistance in the worm colony that made up the Hunter. The cord came out with her hand, and she jumped back, sliding across the bridge with her hand covered in orange muck already grabbing for the pistol on her thigh.

The pouch exploded deep within the Hunter, blowing it to pieces as its upper half sloughed off and slid over the edge to hit the ground below with an earth shaking thud. The remaining Hunter was exposed, and barely had time to react as she pulled the trigger as fast as the action would cycle. Her entire magazine was dumped into the Hunter as it turned, the high explosive slugs blowing chunks out of the alien as it charged her, roaring with its shield up.

The pistol clicked empty, and she waited for it to smash its shield down on her. But it wouldn't be happening. Not today, at least. With its shield up, both sides of it were exposed, and the remaining Marines filled it with lead, a weak groan coming from it as it collapsed forward. Morgan rolled out of the way just in time, feeling the impact of the Hunter's fall in her bones.

Slowly, she sat up, her heart racing in her chest as she tried to swallow with a dry mouth. The magazine in the pistol fell out and she reloaded it without thinking, slotting it back into place on her hip.

The sound of coughing filled her ears. "Sound off!" It was Johnson.

A Marine on the far side, one she didn't know, called out. "Two KIA, Gunny's gone! Another so fucked up he might as well be KIA!"

Johnson moved across the bridge to Morgan, his hand out to help her up as what remained of his own squad covered the rear and entrance. "You good?" He asked, and she stood, taking his hand as more of an acknowledgment than anything.

"I'm good. How many do we have left?"

Reynolds' men were barely the number they had started at, only three being left, including the Marine that had been nearly killed. Johnson's squad wasn't faring any better. The shot that had missed her had wounded or killed nearly everyone, save for Johnson himself, only one other being left alive.

She frowned as he looked around, shaking his head. "Four in any shape to fight, and then you."

"Understood. Let's go, we'll shut this tower down and-"

The radio crackled, Keyes' voice filtering in. " _Tower Delta is down. Last report from the Elites says that… Tower Alpha is down. Beta, status?"_

Morgan stopped herself, beckoning to Johnson. The rest would watch the entrance and hopefully keep an exit open for them. "Almost done. Making our way to the top now."

" _Keep me posted. Masterlock, out."_

Morgan stepped onto the elevator, Johnson following her on as she hit the button to ascend. When it stopped, she could see through the narrow corridor that made up the summit was empty for the most part, supporting arches on either side of the room acting as decoration or simply filling the Forerunner aesthetic. A massive window sat at the front of the room, looking down on the Citadel where Truth was waiting to light the rings.

Stepping off, the two split up, going around a glass partition that separated the elevator from the rest of the control center. This would be over soon enough, and she would be able to rest. The control panel ahead sat waiting, a single icon blinking on the display. She frowned at that, but kept moving forward, halfway to the panel.

But something stopped her. A scrape against the ground, a sound of alarm, a blip on her motion tracker that wasn't a friendly yellow, and she spun on her heel, pistol up in her hand. Time slowed down again, and she realized what was happening.

She had slipped up. Several Brute stalkers came into view, all of them holding spikers up and aimed at her, and then she saw what had happened to Johnson. He was being held by another stalker, struggling against the creature's arm as it kept him quiet. He continued to beat against its arm, but wasn't strong enough to do anything in his position, and the stalker held him with little effort. But then she saw something else, something that made her blood go cold. A massive Brute Chieftain faded into view, clutching a gravity hammer and wearing augmented armor, a cross between the armor the stalkers wore and that of a War Chieftain. It was missing an eye, and she realized what exactly about this Brute scared her, deep inside. It was the one from the anti-aircraft battery, the one that had gotten away from her.

Her pistol was held up, and she looked through the iron sights for once, rather than relying on the armor's targeting system. In her ear, the Marines left below suddenly called out.

" _Commander! Reinforcements! Too many to-_ " The Marine that had called to her went silent, the sound of a spiker hitting him in the chest and killing him outright. Sporadic gunfire continued to sound below, until nothing was left.

Morgan eyeballed the Chieftain, slowly easing back to the control panel. It was still too far away. The Brutes would kill Johnson, would overwhelm even her if she wasn't careful. Her eyes shifted over Johnson, and back to the Chieftain. She would be killing him herself. She would have to live with that if she made it out of this alive.

But she knew what she had to do, no matter how much she hated it. "Masterlock, Brutes got the jump on us. Killed my men. They have Johnson. We might not make it. Going for the controls."

" _Say again, Noble?_ "

"Send backup, now." She stopped listening and started acting. The pistol in her hands rocked back against her palms, the weapon shifting from target to target. The weak armor systems the stalkers wore to cut back on heat meant most of them were felled with a single shot, and she set her sights on the Chieftain, intent on taking him out as she backpedaled towards the control panel, but she wasn't fast enough, and the pistol slide racked back completely, out of ammo.

The Chieftain was on her in an instant, gravity hammer swinging up and hitting her in the chest with a glancing blow before it activated its kinetic pulse and launched her through the air, spinning end over end until her head slammed against the window and her vision nearly went black, shield system wailing in her ears as it collapsed. The Spartan, her movement arrested, fell down towards the floor, where the Chieftain roared a challenge.

She struggled against the call of unconsciousness, reaching for her battle rifle and pulling it over her shoulder as she slid down the window, firing as much as she could. The gravity hammer had other plans, however, and whatever it did to manipulate gravity gave it the ability to stop bullets.

Her rifle ran empty next, and she pulled her knives from their holsters on her hips, ready to bury them in the Chieftain's other eye.

She never made it, the hammer swinging up and hitting her in the chest, moving far quicker than a weapon its size should have been able to. It sandwiched her against the window, the glass cracking and spiderwebbing as she felt her ribs start to give way. The armor held, but a massive dent spread across the chest plate, the shotgun shell rack splitting in half and falling away despite the welding that had held it. The long range radio on her back was crushed as well, and the sound of Keyes' voice in her ear ceased.

The hammer pulled away, the Chieftain looking down at her with a dismissive huff. She slid to the floor, struggling to breathe, but pushed herself up again. The Cheftain snarled at her, one massive hand coming up to her head and grabbing her. Its hand swallowed her helmet, the palm covering her entire visor.

She tried to bring her arms up, to stab at him with the knives locked in her grasp, but she wasn't quick enough. The daze she had been knocked into grew worse as the Brute picked her up by her helmet and held her aloft, before slamming her against the window again, and again. Every impact blackened the edges of her vision further and further.

Johnson squirmed harder against the stalker's grip, but it would do nothing as he watched Noble Six be beaten with barely a fight. Every crack of her helmet against the window brought another muffled cry, another attempt to get free, but nothing worked.

Morgan, her wits leaving her, couldn't hold her arms up any longer, and any fight she had left in her slowly broke away. She had met her match, had been beaten. She would die here. Already, she heard bells chiming in her mind, those same damnable bells that seemed to plague her as much as Kat did.

The pain was fading away, and every sound but the bells but stopped. She could barely see anything anymore, and her HUD blared an alarm that would never reach her. Then it was all over. The Chieftain threw her across the room, where her heavy armor crumpled with her body, barking an order to the single remaining stalker that it was time to leave. Her armor translated, despite the damage and the fact that its occupant was approaching death. The stalker questioned killing the Spartan for good, but the Chieftain denied. There was no time to toy with the Demon when the path was yawning open in front of them.

Morgan watched from where she lay, a pinhole of vision showing the Brutes leaving with Johnson in tow, fighting the whole way, before it was ripped away from her. Somewhere, deep in her mind, those bells continued to increase in volume, until they were nearly deafening.

Before Morgan-B312 faded out, and the world around her ceased to exist, she felt a pull, and heard a voice, one thick with the accent of colonists on New Harmony.

_It's time to rest, Morgan. Your fight is over. Sleep soundly, sister._


	12. Leaving A Light On

Darkness was all she knew, and the bells in her ears faded to little more than a chiming in the distance, before something started to happen. The world began to grow around her, starting at feet she could only now see.

Morgan watched her feet as they came into existence, still the heavy boots of her Mjolnir, but dusty and covered in grime from the hectic fighting that had taken place on the way to the tower. Green grass hit by the light of a sun shined up at her, spreading out forever, until everything fell into place.

A horizon line formed, half a dozen prefab style houses forming from nothing, before a blue backdrop became the sky, not a single cloud in sight. The sun was a golden ball of flame, bringing light to this painted world that she had been brought to.

She felt nothing, looking down at her hands, covered in Mjolnir's gauntlets. She passed over the rest, looking over her armor. The shotgun shell rack was gone, the weld that had held it in place crushed against a lattice of cracks that clawed across the majority of the front armor plate. Her knives were missing from their place on her hips.

Her chest wasn't hurting, but she knew something was wrong. Her ribs had to have been broken, cracked if nothing else. Was she dead? Finally on her way to meet her maker? She didn't know, but it seemed like her fight was over.

There was no room for war machines in this peaceful place. She could see more now, trees in the distance, and rolling hills and cliffs, waterfalls filling a river that ran along behind the prefab buildings.

Running through the armor's systems, she hit the emergency release, and several bolts on the armor exploded, the armored plates being popped from the techsuit underneath with a violent shuddering. All that was left was the helmet, and she reached up, pulling it from her head with a hiss and a grunt, before turning it around and holding it in her hands.

The golden visor was covered in dust and several spots on the helmet's armor plating showed dents, likely where the Brute had grabbed her head and smashed her into the tower. She frowned, running her thumb over the visor, but none of the dust would come away. It had been forever stained and deformed, much like the chest piece had been.

Looking around for it, she wanted to inspect it closer, but none of the armor was there anymore, all of it having ceased to exist while she searched for it. Something covered her eyes, and she flinched, before realizing it was her hair. Black strands had fallen into her eyes, the bun holding it all in place having failed at some point, and she brushed it away, only to have it fall again.

The frown deepened, and she willed the hair away, willed it to stay in place, and it did, but rather than being satisfied or pleased with it, she felt a sense of confusion. Even when she got what she wanted, it seemed it would lead to unhappiness, and she made a move to curse, when a voice behind her sounded.

"Got a few questions?"

It was that voice that had guided her here. It was Kat's voice. Ice filled Morgan's veins, and a cage closed around her heart. The last Noble turned like a whirlwind, her hair not moving from its spot, and saw the other woman standing there. She wasn't in her Mjolnir, nor was she in a military uniform. The hole she had expected to see in her sister's face was gone, looking just as it had on their first meeting after her posting to Noble. Even the dirtiness that had covered them all at the end was gone.

Catherine-B320 stood with her arms crossed, one leg off to the side with her hip cocked, a shallow smile on her face. A thin, loose gray shirt covered her figure, the short sleeves showing her toned arms. Black pants, loose and baggy, flowed down her legs, tied to her waist at the top by draw strings. Her feet were bereft of combat boots, instead hidden away by a pair of white sneakers, untied with the laces tucked in. It was as if she had been rushed for something, but something told Morgan that Kat had been waiting for quite some time.

Morgan swallowed, something that felt painful, like she was being choked, and stared into Kat's eyes. The faint smile on Kat's face disappeared, fading from view as she uncrossed her arms and took a step forward. Morgan fought the urge to take a step back. She would stand her ground in front of this ghost from her past, and seemingly her present.

"It's about time you decided to join us. We were getting tired of waiting."

Kat didn't take another step forward, instead beckoning to the group of prefabs. She turned away, not looking back over her shoulder as she started walking.

Morgan was torn between standing there, alone on the plain, and following a ghost. She chose the latter. She was tired of being alone, and Kat had bothered her regardless. Now would be the time to relax, even if it was merely a shallow representation brought on by the beginning of the end.

The trip was short, the prefabs seemingly covered in half the time it would have taken to close the distance. It wasn't something she dwelled on. There was no explanation she could think of, and Kat wasn't offering one for her either.

"You're awfully quiet," her voice came again, but she didn't look back as she crossed the first prefab, stepping into the middle of the circle they made.

Morgan looked to the first prefab, eyeing it up and down before she slowly made her way into the circle's borders, before she looked back to Kat and met the other woman's eyes. "You're awfully bold to say that. You've been in my mind for days, weeks. I don't remember anymore."

"You sure that was me?" Kat asked, eyebrow raised.

"Pretty sure it was Emile. Of course it was you, Kat. Are you playing dumb with me or trying to make me laugh? Because I'm not laughing and unless that Brute gave me brain damage, I'm not stupid enough to consider otherwise." She spat the words out, irritated by it all of a sudden.

Kat's lips pursed, her chest rising and falling as she took in a deep breath. Morgan tried to do the same, but nothing came, and she didn't dare raise her hand to her chest. "What, you think I've been haunting you, Morgan?"

"What else would you be doing? A dead woman calling to me and trying to make me second guess myself at every turn?"

"Was it me? Or was it your mind playing tricks on you?"

Morgan spoke through gritted teeth, expecting a headache at any moment. "Stop answering questions with questions, Kat."

The slavic woman gave her a half smile, her arms crossing again as she took up the pose from before. "I had expected this to be a much nicer reunion, like our last one."

Morgan anticipated a headache forming in the near future, if her brains hadn't been scrambled before getting brought here. "If you would tell me straight answers and not this riddle-filled bullshit that you keep spew-" Her hand came up, a finger pointing at the other woman in an accusing manner, and she saw the techsuit was gone.

She flinched, her attention torn from Kat and on her hand, her arm, scars and pale skin replacing the black techsuit. She held her other arm up, and it showed the same. Following the limbs up, she glanced down. Her chest was covered in a thin, faded violet shirt, with sleeves ending just an inch or two down her arm. Blue denim covered her legs, something she thought had gone out of style and production long ago with the advent of synthetic fiber alternatives. A pair of black shoes covered her feet, laced properly and held snug on her.

Kat started to answer but Morgan beat her to it. "What the _fuck_ is going on here!?" She nearly screamed it, feeling the words pass through her throat as if they were clawing their way to the top, the first feeling she had truly had in this new world. Of course it had been pain. It was always pain. The first and last things she had felt had been that single feeling.

She wanted to sob, to break down and cry, but she didn't. Her eyes squeezed closed, as if trying to block it all off, to dispel the apparition of her sister in front of her. She didn't notice a flash of red in the sky, and it was gone as quickly as it had come. Her eyes opened and she saw Kat looking at her, almost sad.

"I can't tell you that, Morgan, as much as I want to. I… don't have the answers you're seeking." Her half smile was one that spoke volumes, sheathed in layers of hurt and resignation.

Frustration turned to anger, an emotion that Morgan knew well, but nonetheless lost control of in this instance. "Am I dead? Am I alive? Tell me! You're here, but you're dead! You've been in my head for too long! Years apart, and then we get reunited, only for you to get _cored_ right behind me! Then the others did the same shit! First Jorge, then you, and then Emile and Carter. At least they got to go out on their own terms! I was all that was left, you know that?"

Kat didn't say anything, calm blue eyes meeting angry green. Morgan went on. "I expected to die on Reach. Expected it to all be over just like _that_." She snapped her fingers, a thunderclap passing over and making her flinch again.

"But you didn't." Kat finally spoke up, taking the pause in her sister's speech for herself. "You kept going, made it off world, you did what you had to do. Tell me, if you had to choose between staying there, fighting and dying for nothing, or doing what you did? Would you change your mind?"

It had been unexpected. Morgan's anger dissipated, as if water had been thrown on the fire inside of her. "What? No, I-"

Kat interrupted her. "Would you throw your life away if you were the only one that could do it?" She started walking closer, hand up and outstretched. "You remember what he told you."

Kat's fingers wrapped around something that was only just now present, and Morgan's eyes followed her hand until she saw what Kat was holding. Jorge's dog tag, still on a chain around her neck, but it was alone. She reached up and slipped the tag from Kat's fingers, holding it in her own as she voiced a memory. "He told me..." Her words wouldn't come out, and then she felt it, the massive hand on her shoulder.

"To make it count."

Her eyes started to close, started to give in to the emotion that she was feeling start to overflow, filling the empty void that this world had brought to her. Warmth flooded her eyes, but she didn't understand it. She forced herself to look back, and saw the big man standing behind her.

Jorge gave her a thin smile, hidden behind the bushy mustache he had worn and the darkness covering his cheeks, definitely out of regulation, and she felt herself return it. Pain came back, and it hurt to see him again, but she knew that she had missed him dearly since he disappeared over Reach as she fell to the planet below. At the same time, something else came over her, a warmth that reminded her of how his gentle demeanor and his way with her in particular had made him almost like a surrogate father figure in his mannerisms. At least, as much as one could be to a Spartan. She wanted to reach up, to put her hands on his chest or his shoulders, his arm or his hand. To remind herself he was there for real. He had been the only one she could have saved, the only one she could have traded places with in that instant.

"Did I? Did I make it count, Jorge?" It was almost a pleading question, one that begged for reassurance. That let her know she hadn't wasted his sacrifice.

His smile grew a bit more, crinkling the corners of his eyes, and she felt his hand squeeze her shoulder gently. His tone rolled over her like distant thunder, his accent all too familiar. "You did as much as any of us could have been asked for. You made it count, Morgan."

His words fell on her like a thousand bricks. The world she had been brought to, this limbo or purgatory, it confused her. She didn't like it, or the thought that she had made it so close, only to get sidelined now. But, did it really matter? She had done her part, had gone above and beyond in every sense, had sacrificed everything. Could she be asked any more?

Jorge's hand finally left her shoulder, dropping to his side, and she stifled a frown as she realized that she missed it already. Emotions and feelings were starting to come back, to replace the numbness that had grown inside of her without her even realizing it. Pain, hurt, confusion, now warmth and loneliness. She looked up at Jorge, the big man's smile turning into a grin and deforming the scar across his eye as he clapped his hand against her bicep, pushing her just a bit. "Couldn't have done it better myself."

A laugh started to rise up her throat, and she let it out just a bit. "Emile was right, you really are sentimental, Jorge."

"I'm always right, girl."

She turned at the sound of his voice, seeing Emile step out of one of the prefabs. His knife was gone, but she recognized him all the same. She had only seen his face once before he had died, and even in death, he hadn't changed on bit from what she remembered. The black man gave her a cocky grin, nodding to her once. "You did good out there, real good. Couldn't have done it better myself."

Praise coming from Emile was something new, something fresh. She decided she liked it, returning the smile. He was halfway to her, his stride relaxed and smooth, unlike the aggressive advance his armor had always shown him to use.

He had his hand out, pointing at something on her chest. "I see you kept me around."

Glancing down, she saw that Jorge's tag had been joined by Emile's own, the two tags reflecting the light of the sun in the distance. She brought her hand up, wrapping her fingers around it and feeling the metal underneath. It was warm to the touch, as if it had been against her skin this whole time.

Looking back up to Emile, letting the tag go, she nodded. "I would have taken that sword you kept on your shoulder, but I figured you'd rather keep it close at hand."

A low chuckle, a genuine one, and not the sarcastic laughter she had heard so much in his presence. He had been anger made into a man, and she could understand that. "Much appreciated, Six." She decided she liked it when Emile wasn't so angry. It suited him better, in her eyes, and he seemed to see the twinkle in her eyes, because the grin softened into a smile that said volumes more than anything she'd heard him say on Reach.

Morgan was slowly throwing away her apprehensions, letting herself just believe in it all. What other choice was there? She could be angry and confused, lashing out at all of these ghosts that had never quite let her go, or she them; Or she could accept it for what it was, and enjoy whatever it brought. A part of her told her to push it away and claw her way back out into her armor, to pick up a gun and carry on, save Johnson and the others. But was it worth it? To fight again despite the stress and he pain on the endless road that fate had set her on?

She didn't know. She was tired of being the sole survivor, or of being sent out alone. A flash of blue across her eyes, and she heard another string of words, sounding far off and faint.

_Don't make a girl a promise…_

There it was. Her heart seized in yet another ice cold grip. She had made a promise, and she would be damned if she wouldn't keep it.

Green eyes passed over all of them as she backed up a few steps. Emile stood to Kat's left, and Jorge came around to tower over the other two, arms crossed. "I can't stay here. I need a way out."

Each one began to smile, but none of them said a word as they stared at her, and she backed up once more before she felt something against her back. Whipping around, she came face to face with Carter. His lips were set in a shallow upturn, his strong features standing out as they always had. Blue eyes looked down a sharp nose, meeting green as his hands came up, on either of her shoulders. She frowned, looking at both hands, before meeting his gaze again.

"You're right. You can't stay here." The smile faltered for a moment, before it was alive once more, stronger than before as he took his hands off and joined the rest of Noble. She turned to follow him with her gaze, watching as he stood between Kat and Jorge. "We'd love for you to join us… but you're not ready. Not yet."

A shock in her chest, electricity flooding through her entire body, and a single strong thud in her chest. Several seconds passed before another one came, and the sky above was torn before it reformed. Another jolt, and another tear. She felt panic filling her, looking at the sky with each new rip and tear growing larger and staying longer to expose the black void on the other side. Another anxious glance down at Noble, and she realized they were all still giving her that same smile, but their eyes said something she didn't understand.

Carter spoke up again. "You know the motto, Six. Spartans never die..."

A final jolt, and another powerful thud, and they were ripped away from her in a swarm of static. Her own voice echoed in her head as everything went back to black.

"...They're just missing in action."

* * *

Morgan's chest expanded with a gasp of air that she struggled to draw in, the cold air like ice in her mouth and throat. Her helmet was gone, and the tower she had left behind was once again in view, unobstructed by the visor or her HUD. The black armor of an ODST was hunched over her, opal visor staring at her. Shoulders drooped in relief, and the helmet turned to call out.

"Chief! I've got her!"

The olive green armor of Spartan 117 came into view, his own golden visor looking down at her. An MA5C was clutched in his armored hands, and he kneeled next to her, the ODST medic consulting a terminal with several cables that hooked into her armor.

"What happened? Where's Johnson?" Her words came out in a half croak. Her chest was on fire, and it hurt more every time she breathed.

"Taken. The Brutes got him to the Citadel. Are you good to fight?"

The medic's head whipped around, and though she couldn't see his face behind the visor he wore, she knew he was looking incredulously at the other Spartan. "Sir, she was _dead_ , for longer than I'd like to think about. She's in no condition to fi-"

Morgan's hand came up, grabbing the trooper's arm, and watching his head come back to hers just as fast amused her. He would have whiplash at this rate. "I have a job to do. A promise to keep. I'm good to fight."

His protests started, but she silenced them with an open hand. She would be hearing nothing from it. "What's wrong with me?"

He was silent for a moment, before he pulled his tablet up. Already, she was going through her armor's diagnostics, finding out what had been damaged. Her chest armor had been cracked and compromised, and a glance down told her as much. The shotgun shell rack was gone, just like it had been in that dream world, and a spider's web of cracks covered the armor. It wasn't deep, but it meant another hit like that, or plasma hitting it would be far more dangerous than normal. One of the shield emitters was destroyed as well, weakening the frontal shields. Reaching up, her hand brushed against the cracks, and she visualized the dog tags resting underneath, wanting to reach out and touch them again.

"Your chest plate isn't combat effective anymore, and almost every one of your ribs has suffered hairline fractures. Left 12th rib is cracked, and if it's put under any more heavy strain it could break and cause more trouble down the line. You've got a concussion and your helmet has several dents in it from… whatever messed you up. I'm telling you, you're not in fighting condition. If you meet whatever left you here again, I can almost promise it'll finish the job this time. If you somehow win, your chest cavity is likely to collapse and you'll suffocate and die anyway."

Morgan looked at the trooper, green eyes boring into the blue visor. "Spartans never die, Helljumper."

Whatever he might have said was stopped, and she reached for a canister of biofoam stuck in one of his armor's pouches. Stuffing it into one of the ports of her armor, she pushed the plunger on the canister down, and felt the icy burn of the biofoam activating. It expanded in her chest, stabilizing the ribs just in case, and threw the canister away. The onboard medical system for her armor was ruined, just her luck. She grabbed another canister and attached it to her armor. It would have to do.

"My helmet." Her words were clipped and she still felt herself having trouble breathing, but the biofoam would help.

The medic seemed to be done protesting, wordlessly handing the damaged helmet to her, and she took it just as quietly. It was turned over in her hands, and she saw five dents in the metal where the Brute had grabbed her, and another larger dent in the rear where it had been slammed into the tower's window. The AI port was undamaged, miraculously, and she ran her thumb over it as if that would call out Cortana from the empty chip still slotted in place. She didn't miss the Master Chief tilting his head slightly at the motion.

The helmet was spun again, the golden visor covered in dust and grime from the fighting. A sense of deja vu came over her as she turned it back around and held it up, sliding it over her head. Seals met and held, hissing as they locked her inside of the armor again. Her HUD displayed on the helmet, flickering for a moment before flashing and staying strong. The shield bar was empty, and it let out a low _deedle deedle_ as the armor set it to charge, before a muted beep told her it was charged and ready for action again.

She was damaged, wounded, and all around a mess after that fight, but she would be able to fight again. She would get Johnson back, and she would have her revenge.

Something entered the side of her field of vision, and she saw what it was. A BR55 was held out to her, butt first, and she followed the stock to see the Master Chief had given her the weapon that she had dropped during that ill fated fight. Taking it, she gave him a silent nod, one he returned.

The medic, collapsing his medical terminal and slotting it back into place in the small of his back, glanced at her and then back to the Chief, before his visor aimed for the Citadel in the distance. The shield was down, and the _Shadow of Intent_ slid into place over the structure that housed the Prophet of Truth. She frowned. There was no idea of knowing whether or not Johnson was in there. If he was, then his fate would be sealed along with the rest.

But it was out of her hands now, and she would carry that with her until she couldn't carry herself. The energy projector on the bottom of the assault carrier's bulbous bow lit up, straining against the mass of energy that was fed to the weapon.

The Shipmaster's voice rang in her ears, slightly tinny from the helmet's damage. " _Now, Prophet… your end has come."_

She waited for the final strike, the blow to end the war, but it never came. A rupture in the sky behind the _Shadow of Intent_ formed, spewing angry purple and blue arcs of electricity as an absolutely massive slipspace portal was ripped open, and the rotted, Flood infested mass of the Covenant Holy City, High Charity, emerged in all of its corrupted state.

The Shipmaster almost seemed confused. " _High Charity… by the Gods, brace for impact!"_ The mushroom shaped station passed overhead, missing the carrier by a wide margin and sending a thunderclap over the land, but dozens of pieces began to break off and drop in a storm of debris that smashed into the landscape below and the other towers. One piece came down on the _Intent_ , the shields flaring in a flash of white as the chunk of station hit it, collapsing the shields and still plunging through one side and out the other. A geyser of flame erupted from the new wound, and the carrier listed heavily as it was crippled by the hit. One of the secondary engines flamed out, going dark and leaving the carrier with even less power.

" _The parasite has dealt the_ Intent _a heavy blow, our weapons systems are offline and we're losing altitude!"_

Commander Keyes was on the line in a heartbeat, and Morgan watched as another piece of debris hurtled right for them. " _Break away! Get some distance and try to recover!_ "

The _Intent_ struggled to gain altitude, lifting slowly and turning away from the Citadel to try and make sense of the damage they had been dealt. But Morgan didn't have time to worry about that, and the chunk of debris continued on its path, giving her just enough time to yell and grab the medic, staring awe struck at it all.

"Incoming!" Her hand latched onto the medic's chest piece and hauled him out of the way, the debris smashing through the massive window and coming to a halt against the glass that separated them from the elevator, where it rolled and finally settled down.

The Master Chief already had his weapon up, the rifle chattering loudly as a roar went up, composed of a million voices, and Flood combat forms started sprinting out of the wreckage.

The medic, struggling to comprehend it all, pulled his sidearm to engage, and the sounds of combat drowned out Morgan's words to everybody but herself as another fight in a life of war started.

"Out of the frying pan..."

Noble Six would have her rest one day, but today was not that day.


	13. One Final Effort

**Author's Note: I apologize for this taking so much longer than usual, but I slowed down a lot. The muse, she is a fickle one, but here we are. We're nearing the end of part 2. Two, maybe three more chapters to go, and I feel this may be finished. I'll try to have those chapters out quicker than I got this one out, but I don't want to rush and mess up so close to the finish line. So, thanks for waiting as long as you have. I hope you enjoy this chapter and I look forward to seeing you next time I upload.**

* * *

Trails of acrid green crossed the amber colored sky, leaving a sickening haze to fall over the wintry landscape near the Ark's Citadel, pieces of High Charity becoming little more than a way down to get at the food that waited below. The station that had once been home to the Covenant's heart, the home of the Hierarchs themselves, was a glorified crash cart to bring an ancient horror that much closer to fresh food and a grisly end for whoever it lay its rotting claws on.

Morgan didn't see the station hurtle up the Ark's arm and come down in a storm of infection and fire. Her golden visor reflected the blaze of ignition with every pull of the trigger, and the bolt slammed back, empty and flooded with smoke that left the chamber in curling wisps.

Another mag slammed home and the battle rifle continued its chattering, adding to the din that had filled the air with the arrival of the parasite. Human Marines in tattered fatigues, Brutes in ceremonial armor long ago tarnished, Elites in various states of decay, all of them flooded from the Flood's insertion pod. It was nothing more than a chunk of the station, broken off and forgotten on landing.

Screams from a million voices, roars that held no semblance of individual sentience, a shambling corpse made from the form of uncountable souls, all came together in a sound that sent chills up the Spartan's spine and sent her blood rushing through her veins in an ice cold struggle to fill her body with oxygen.

The ODST medic cursed as the rifle he had taken ran dry, his magazine ejecting as he reached for another with practiced ease. He did it all right, a perfect transition from one magazine to another, slamming it into the assault rifle and cocking it. He pulled the trigger and a single round went out, before a sickening click hit them all. Her head turned, whipping around in an instant, and saw the weapon had jammed on him. His eyes turned down at the weapon, almost in disbelief as he dropped it and went for his sidearm, the magnum coming up at what had once upon a time been a Human Marine.

But he wasn't fast enough. The time when it all counted, when everything came down to the wire, and he missed it. In his mind, the second dragged on for an eternity, reminding him again and again that he had failed, and he would pay the price with his life. His magnum kept coming up, arm not willing to let him just give up and die, willing to fight to the end, die on his feet and with hate on his tongue.

The end never came. It wasn't his time.

A blue armored gauntlet pierced the edge of his sight, like a bolt of lightening but infinitely more deadly. It traveled faster than anything he'd ever seen, a blur in his adrenaline flooded system, too fast even for this artificial slow down of his, and then it was gone, buried to the mid forearm in the combat form's chest. The limbs had gone limp almost immediately, the Spartan's aim true as it destroyed the infector form puppet master.

It pulled back and shook, green gore and pus coming off in waves, but it would be forever stained by the action. The medic spared her a glance, before another scream pulled him back to the fight at hand, reaching for his dropped rifle and clearing the jam.

Noble Six moved past him, her armored bulk moving like she was gliding with how little her shoulders bobbed, even returning fire. Her battle rifle chattered loudly, and ahead of both of them, the Master Chief was in the thick of it, assault rifle releasing short bursts that always seemed to hit their mark, popping infectors and dropping combat forms with the exact amount of fire before switching targets.

The medic's breathing was deafening in his helmet, and he could hear the comms chatter from the rest of his squad below, holding their exit, but neither Spartan spoke. They were like ghosts, but their silent presence on the battlefield came with a pressure that only a team of Spartans could put on. The Commander turned back to him to make sure he was following, her visor telling him things her voice didn't, and he moved up.

He looked over her armor, seeing the cracks that had marred her chest plate forever, and the discoloration of the paint on the titanium. The radio that had been attached to her back was crushed, sparking from time to time. Would she be able to get it off?

He didn't ask. It wasn't the time. Moving up to her side, rifle ready, he shared a look with her and pushed past, closer to the infector pod that blocked their way to the elevator. His helmet blocked off the rotten stench that would have gagged a maggot, and he was thankful as his armor blared a warning about contamination of an unknown type. A shudder rocked his frame as they passed by it, the combat forms all having fallen under the withering barrage that two Spartans could bring to bear.

Stepping onto the elevator, the medic didn't know what he had just come upon, not entirely, and the whole thing would be buried so deep under security clearance layers after this was all said and done that he'd never truly know what it was either. With a passing thought, he realized he didn't really want to know. Those screams would haunt him for years, would be the worst of the nightmares that plagued him until his final night.

With the elevator shifting beneath them, he took a deep breath, and hoped he didn't see it again while he was awake.

* * *

Morgan stepped onto the elevator behind the Master Chief, checking over her shoulder to make sure the medic was still following. His head tilted up to meet her gaze, and she frowned. She couldn't see his face behind his visor, couldn't gauge his reaction to it all.

In hindsight, it likely didn't matter, but the thought was there, in her mind. She remembered her run in with the Flood, remembered how it had turned her into a scared little girl again. She had fought through that infested station with both the will to survive and her fear pushing her onward. What that thought would do to the ODST, she had no clue, and she almost hoped she wouldn't find out.

The elevator shuddered and started to drop, none of them saying anything until it reached the bottom, where a squad of ODSTs and another full of red armored Elites stood waiting. They weren't chancing another ambush.

One of the ODSTs that had been waiting at the bottom came closer, his visor depolarizing and showing the man beneath. It was Stacker, and she could see his eyes pass over her armor, the broken radio that was sparking even now, and the medic that stood next to her.

He whistled low. "Damn, they did a number on you, didn't they?"

Her helmet tilted to look at him. "Good thing I'm indestructible."

A smile made its way through, despite the circumstances. "Yeah, it is, ain't it? Come on, transport is waiting outside. You been gettin' Keyes' transmissions?"

"Negative." She glanced back at the antenna that had come from the armor's rear plate. It jutted out of an added on armor box, one that was, unfortunately, dented heavily, sparks coming from the top with the sound of crushed electricals struggling to power on. Looking back to Stacker, she shook her head. "Long range is out. Stuck on short range."

Going through her armor's systems, she found the radio addition, cutting power to it and stopping the sparks finally. The Master Chief stepped past her, looking down at Stacker, and then to her. "We need to move."

She nodded, looking back to Stacker. "Give me a sit rep."

"Armor and Hogs have been dropped outside, ready for us to move into a mountain pass that takes us through the other side and gives us a winding path to the Citadel. Covies are all over the pass so it ain't gonna be easy. Not very wide either so we're stuck with moving less than we'd like to."

"One final push then. Let's get outside and get loaded up. What about the Elites?"

Stacker shrugged. "No clue. Either they join us or load back up in their Phantoms and go over the top. Triple A should all be knocked out, so they should be able to move without issue."

"It'll do. Is Ranger still up?"

"Yes ma'am, ready to provide close air support. Air superiority is ours, so they've been rearmed with AGMs in case of heavy resistance."

"Good. Let's get outside, get loaded up, and roll out. We don't have much time."

Stacker immediately started giving orders to his squad to form up and get moving. With Noble Six back in action, they were ready for the final push on the citadel. Stepping out of the tower and into the late day sun, the sound of engines idling and the yelling of voices caught her ears.

A convoy had set up on the pathway next to the tower's entry, two Scorpions and a group of Warhogs sat waiting, one of the 'hogs armed with a high power gauss cannon. The Master Chief went straight for the gauss hog, climbing onto the back and waiting for them to get moving. Morgan chose something more armored, more ready to shrug off punishment. She wasn't interested in making herself vulnerable. Not again.

Climbing onto the tread cover and dropping into the machine gunners slot on the Scorpion, she connected herself to the tank's communications. "Who's on the other end of this tank?"

The Irish accent that responded was familiar, one she had worked with already. " _Aye, we just keep runnin' intae each other don't we? Armadillo's in the driver's seat, ma'am_."

"Good to be working with you again, trooper."

" _Likewise, commander. I'll get ya where ya need tae go."_

At least she was in a tank with a woman that could hold her own. Morgan kept the communications channel open, but switched to another, the command channel. "Mount up, Marines. We're burning time. Stepping off in one."

A chorus of voices answered, and any Marines that weren't already in their vehicles hopped in, several hopping onto the tread pods of both Scorpions and hefting heavy weapons for defense."

Stacker's ODST squad was half in one Warthog and half in another, taking up the two lead Warthogs with the Master Chief on their gauss cannon. Marines in standard battle dress did the same for the rear Warthogs and Scorpion.

Satisfied the lead vehicles were ready, she twisted in the gunner's seat and looked back. Everybody in the rear was ready. Clicking her comm, she gave the order. "Lead vic, step off, spread out. Armor, stay in column, try not to block the road if we end up eating it."

Affirmatives from each vehicle commander sounded, and the Warthog in the lead rocked against its suspension when it started moving. The low hum of idling engines became a loud growl, treads squeaking and whining as the tanks accelerated slowly and kept pace with the Warthogs.

Morgan lowered herself into a seated stance in the gun, pulling the bolt back on the machine gun and setting a round in the chamber in case anything got too close. She could smell the stale air in her helmet, the dried sweat, and even a hint of blood, but it was little more than a distraction to her. Armadillo kept quiet, likely focused on driving the tank through what had started to become a less than smooth pass. Rocks rose up on either side, the Warthogs skirting around them when they got into the roadway, but the Scorpion was large enough and powerful enough to just roll over them.

The engine belched black smoke out the rear, dissipated by the whipping wind and the other Scorpion's turret spreading it out. Armadillo's turret scanned to the right as they started to take a turn in the bend, ready to fire on whatever they saw.

Nothing came, the sounds of engines echoing off of the stony walls. Morgan was less than enthused about a running gunfight in this passage, more than ready to get into the open where the Scorpion's big gun could do its job properly.

The _crack_ of the gauss cannon firing caught her attention, and she looked forward again. The lead Warthog whipped around the corner with the Master Chief holding onto the gun, another crack sounding as it fired again. The Warthog disappeared behind more stone but a Ghost, cored through the center and burning, skidded across the snow and ice. More cracks sounded and the second Warthog gunned its engine to keep up with its partner and ensure it wasn't overwhelmed.

Keying her comm, she called out to them. "Vic one, you're extending. Be careful."

The Master Chief was quick to respond. " _Understood."_

Returning to the vehicle net, she gave Armadillo the order. "Pick up the pace, don't let them get too far ahead in case of heavy armor."

" _Aye, ma'am,_ _steppin' on it_ _."_

The Scorpion lurched and the tracks continued to grind and squeak against the cold ground, snow and ice breaking and being smashed underneath the heavy tread pods. The engine increased in volume, roaring in protest at the load it was being given to push.

Rounding the first corner completely, several Ghosts sat destroyed, either cored by the gauss cannon or riddled with holes from the LAAG. A floating watch tower had been reduced to a broken platform off to the side, the grav lift that had held it only a few minutes before now holding nothing. Brute and Grunt corpses littered the area, with a pair of Jackals being burned in the fires of the watch tower platform.

Her comm buzzed, a voice filtering into her ear, the deep baritone of the Master Chief. " _Citadel in sight, multiple road blocks on the path across the mountain's edge. Pulling back to convoy."_

"Confirmed, Master Chief." She switched back to the convoy's main net. "All vics be advised, moving around the next bend will expose us to roadblocks. Light vehicles are given autonomy. Armor will engage heavy assets and static positions as needed."

A chorus of copies from the Marines in the side seats filled the net, and with Armadillo pushing around the next curve in the road, she saw the battlefield spread out in front of her.

The Citadel sat at the edge of a snow covered field, mountains on all sides closing the area off. Mountain paths to the right were covered in Covenant soldiers and positions, while the field below had a platoon of Wraiths dug in and ready to lob mortars at the convoy.

Stacker's voice filled the command channel, his accent twanging as another crack sounded, both in his end of the comm and from the vehicle ahead. " _Brutes're mobilizing everything they got, crawling all over this damn cliffside! Watch ou-"_ The comm cut on his end, the ODST not wanting to fill the channel with things that weren't relevant to the rest of the convoy.

Morgan didn't respond, going back to the vehicle net. "Armadillo, who's in the tank behind us?"

" _Callsign is_ _Chaos, Ma'am,"_ the reply came from behind them. Scorpion 2's driver was sunken into the armor of the tank, the gun shifting and loosing a shot into the valley where it impacted off to the side of a ghost and flipped it. The Grunt inside fell out, scrambling up to get away from the vehicle and any more shots.

"Roger, Chaos. Path ahead branches off, left and right. You're left, low road. Bounding tactics, but if a mortar starts coming your way, displace immediately."

" _Chaos copies."_

"Armadillo, that leaves us to the right. Move up, you're first jump."

" _Aye, Armadillo's joining the party."_

The Scorpion growled as the tank moved up and over the first hill. A squad of infantry stood beneath another hovering observation platform, a Jackal peeking over the lip and squawking as it realized it was skylined and a tank was looking right at it.

With less than three pounds of pressure, Armadillo's finger closed on the trigger to the main gun, and it roared as it sent a shell towards the observation post. The HE shell impacted before any of the snow that had been knocked off of the walls could start to drift, and the observation post disappeared in a storm of fire and shrapnel, the Jackal inside little more than chunks and pieces.

The observation post came apart in broken pieces that rained down on the squad below, one piece crushing the Brute squad leader and leaving the Grunts to realize they were destined to be little more than another moment of target practice.

The machine gun came to life in Morgan's hands, barking and spitting tracers into the Grunts as she walked it from the left to the right, ripping the diminutive aliens apart in a hail of yellow fire. They were all silent within seconds, bright blue blood pooling in a small pond that was disrupted by the Scorpion's treads rolling through.

Morgan didn't hear the sounds of cracking bones, but the hiss of punctured methane tanks sounded loud enough. With their first job done, the tank came to a halt looking at the next hard point, where the Warthogs that had been leading were already tearing through. "Chaos, move up, you're next jump. Path is a left turn after you pass in front of the hill we're on, Warthogs are in the thick of it so check fire."

" _Roger, Chaos displacing."_

Below her and to the left, she could hear the sound of Chaos' engine revving up as it passed forward and around the hill that dropped down onto the path ahead. The turret was rotated to the left, watching for any more movement on the ground. Firing into the midst of the fight going on with his main gun was too risky, and the targets on the field below were far more numerous.

At the next hard point of resistance, more observation posts sat waiting, Jackals firing down at the Warthogs and making near misses. Morgan gave the order. "Armadillo, switch to coax, gun down the snipers. Safe the main gun. We don't want to crush our boys."

The sound of the coaxial machine gun was her answer, the machine gun built into the Scorpion's turret coming to life and rattling as it sent rounds into the observation posts. Morgan joined her own fire with it, and bullet holes all through the purple armor appeared like a rash, and purple blood started to flow as the Jackals were ripped apart by the heavy rounds.

The twin machine guns fell back to silence as the triggers released and Armadillo took up the rear, dropping off the hill and into the cover provided by the outcropping of stone. The path continued on to the left, hooking around to the other side, while a tunnel through the rock acted as a shortcut. Chaos was already taking the long way, and with the tunnel being a covered spot from the fire that was lancing up from the field below, Armadillo moved into the hollow center of the rock with the gun at the ready.

Turbofans howled overhead, muffled by the rock and nearly drowned out by the Scorpion's engine echoing in the tunnel. A flight of Hornets passed them by, nose guns opening up as Marines hefting rocket launchers hung off of the sides, firing into the horde below. The new channel connected automatically, and she could hear one of the Marine crewmen calling out to another. "Watch this drive!"

A rocket was accompanied by a burst of light and the _woosh_ of the rocket motor burning to life, launching from the side of the lead Hornet and screaming for the line of Wraiths that had been dug in almost a mile distant. The crew struggled to bring it to life, pull it out of its ditch, and flee, but they were too late. Just as the Wraith lifted back off the ground and pulled back, the rocket impacted, burying itself in the driver's hatch and burrowing in before detonating. The explosion was massive, and the mortar in the back blew with a shower of still hot plasma. Steam filled the air as snow melted in a large patch around the tank before evaporating into the air, burned off completely.

A whoop went up as the Hornets dropped altitude and circled around before splitting up and filling the air. Ahead, another pair of Hornets had come in, touching down with the pilots abandoning their craft, one of them flagging down the gauss warthog that had stopped abruptly.

The Master Chief had leapt from the back, the ODST in the passenger seat swinging around and taking the gun before the 'hog rocketed off again, kicking up a rooster tail of snow and dirt behind it as it followed a sloping hill down to the valley. Calling out to Armadillo, Morgan pointed for the Hornets.

"Get me to the birds, then get hull down. You've got lead on armor element. Chaos, status."

Armadillo didn't respond, but Morgan knew she had been heard. Chaos' voice filtered in over the channel. " _Green, ma'am."_

"Get in position, provide long range fire support where possible. Focus on the Wraiths first. That goes for both of you."

As Armadillo came to a halt behind the remaining Hornet, Morgan hopped out, and made a run for the bird, the Master Chief having already lifted off. The Marine on the side closest to her shouted something that was lost in the wash of the turbofan, the pilot bailing out of the Hornet and moving to take up a place in the Scorpion.

Hefting herself up and over the lip of the Hornet's cockpit, her radio crackled, a voice filtering through on all bands. " _Break break break, all units, this is_ Forward Unto Dawn, _be advised, two Scarabs have been detected falling through the Ark's atmosphere, directly above the Citadel. Landfall in_ _20 seconds_ _._ _Noble, do you read?"_

She felt exasperation as she pushed the Hornet's collective higher, lifting off the ground and leaving behind puddles of water where the snow had been melted by the heat of the engines. "Noble is on station."

" _Ranger is in the air and armed with Blacksmith missiles for anti-armor usage. You have lead on the ground._ Dawn _is moving in to prevent possible Flood outbreak. Additional:_ Dawn _Actual is off the ship. Repeat, Masterlock has left the ship."_

Confusion flooded her head, and she pushed the Hornet out over the field. Warthogs and Ghosts crisscrossed the field in a shower of plasma bolts, a hail of tracer fire, and the bright blue line of gauss fire. Looking up, she could see twin fireballs dropping fast. "Say again, _Dawn_?"

" _Masterlock has left the ship in a Pelican, we have her on radar but she's moving straight for you. Unknown if the Pelican has additional crew or not."_

A muttered curse, a pit in her gut. "Noble copies all. Out." Cutting the channel, she pushed forward on the control stick, nosing down slightly and catching a Ghost caught out. The twin autocannons mounted in the wing roots opened up with a rapid fire barrage that kicked up snow and dirt, and eventually punched holes in the Ghost and the driver, ripping both apart in a storm of fire and body parts.

Shifting fire, she rotated to hit another target when the Hornet blared an alarm. The radar in the attack craft had picked up the two Scarabs, and both came down in a storm of fire as belly mounted thrusters came to life and slowed their descent. All four legs unfolded from the bodies, and as they picked themselves up, massive thruster beds were left behind on the snowy field. The rear mounted AA guns came to life, firing at the Hornets swarming around as Brutes stormed out of the inner areas to man the guns on the Scarabs' bodies.

A hail of bright plasma climbed into the sky, streaking past the Hornet without hitting it, miraculously. The twin anti-aircraft guns opened up as well, casting the entire clearing in a bright glow that tinted the white snow a faint purple. Over the wash of the jet engines, the firing of the rockets on the Hornet's skids, and the firing of the guns, she could hear every stomp that the Scarabs took,

Two hands manipulated the stick between her legs and the collective lever next to her left thigh. Gloves ghosted over the firing stud and the trigger, and with a banshee screaming through the sky in front of the Hornet, the firing stud pushed deep into the trigger's body as the firing tone growled loudly in the cockpit.

Missiles screamed from their pods at the wing roots, their motors igniting and propelling them to faster than the speed of sound in seconds as they spun and twirled through the air to chase the offending purple craft down.

The Brute pilot took evasive maneuvers, diving and spinning to avoid them, but the seekers continued to track, maneuvering fins pivoting and twisting to get them back on target. One dove after the Banshee at high speed, overshooting it and plummeting into the ground, but the other continued its track path. Spinning did nothing, and the high speed the Banshee went down at was nothing in comparison to the missile. The banshee started to shake at the turn it pulled, the pilot pulling back on his controls just in time to avoid the ground.

Unfortunately for him, the missile did too, and the rear of the Banshee, where the pilot's boots could be seen, disappeared in a storm of shrapnel as the missile exploded just short, sending the warhead's contents straight into the cockpit and out the front. The craft became a mess of shredded armor and ripped internals, losing power and dropping to the snowy ground below where the front-heavy body flipped end over end, cartwheeling into the foot of the mountain and detonating in a fireball.

The entire engagement had lasted seven seconds, and Morgan had forgotten about the Banshee the moment the missiles had gone out. Her radar signified nothing more than another blip disappearing, and the crew channel was alive with target callouts from the Marines on the sides.

" _Scratch another howler. Nice shooting, Commander."_

_"Chief's Hornet is doin' well too, from the looks of it. Just saw him drop one too."_

Morgan interjected. "See any more in the sky?"

" _Negative, Comm- Wait, two Banshees just came over the top, east side. Taking aim."_

A few seconds passed before Morgan heard the _whoosh_ of another rocket firing and the reload call that followed. The rocket spiraled into a trajectory that tracked every move the Banshee in its sights made, and when the aircraft started to dive just like its now destroyed cousin, its fate was sealed. The rocket dropped its nose and accelerated even more, the motor finally burning out and leaving it to be nothing more than a dark speck against the black cliffsides.

The warhead smashed into the Banshee's side and detonated an instant later, ripping it to pieces and sending it to the ground below, where it smashed into the snow and was buried.

" _Splash one fighter. Got another one up there."_

"Copy, brace for evasive."

The remaining Banshee broke into evasive maneuvers, but kept tracking towards them. It increased speed, looking like it was going for a ram, and Morgan cursed.

Pulling on the stick, the Hornet whined at the maneuver, and plasma passed by in a hailstorm of bright blue and, at one point, the sickly green of a fuel rod shot. The Marines cursed in her ear as she went defensive, moving left and right, raising and dropping the collective in timed increments as Spartan Time kicked in.

Alternating thuds started to sound as the cannons in the Hornet opened up, punching into the Banshee or plinking off of its armor at certain angles. Thick, black smoke started to trail from the body, and a fire broke out on it as it started to fall down. There was no attempt to pull out of the dive, or to eject. She must have gotten a lucky hit on the pilot.

The Hornet spun on its axis, the thruster nacelles twisting and changing their power settings on the fly as the flight control systems struggled to keep up with a Spartan's commands. An alarm blared in the cockpit, a rapid beeping that meant nothing good, and she realized what it was with the Scarab closest to her turning its rear anti-aircraft gun and getting a solid lock on her.

If she maneuvered too hard or pointed the aircraft straight down, it might injure the Marines on the side. If she didn't, they might all be killed. She had just started to push the nose forward and do it anyway when a streak passed through the air, distorting it, and whatever it was slammed into the base of the anti-aircraft gun. An explosion rocked it, and the gun's fire stopped, before the turret itself drooped down and started dripping waves of plasma.

The grip on her heart released her, and she followed the streak back to see the Scorpion belonging to Chaos, hidden except for the turret behind a snowbank, shifting fire to hit the other Scarab. She made a note to thank him later.

If there was a later.

They were running out of time. "Ranger flight, this is Noble. Are you on station?"

Static filled the net, a distorted voice coming through, before it cleared up. " _-on station. Ready for tasking, Noble."_

"Move quick, two Scarabs on the ground, and we're having trouble popping them. They're covering each other's blind spots. You have anything for that?"

Caesar's rich voice was tinged with a laugh. " _It's your lucky day, Commander. Laze target one, give us a bearing."_

"Roger, Ranger." Switching to the infrared laser system packed into the Hornet for use during just such an occasion, she keyed in the code and got the bearing. "Laze up on Scarab One. Ingress from the beachfront, up-arm. Magnetic heading is 020, laze code is 1466. You're cleared hot."

" _Starting my run now. Two birds, inbound hot from the south-west, we'll put her down. Suggest you get back from it, Noble."_

She didn't respond, but pulled back on the control stick and angled the Hornet back, the engines still at enough power to have them float backwards away from the Scarab. It was already twisting around its entire body to get a shot on her with the main gun, and with bright green plasma dripping from the main gun, she hoped Ranger moved fast.

Their entrance was silent for the most part, accompanied only by the sound of what very well could have been distant thunder over the din of battle. Morgan watched the Scarab, taking evasive maneuvers preemptively, and she waited. Waited for the shot that never came from the gun, waited for the shadow of a Broadsword fighter to pass over it, minus the payload it carried, waited for one Scarab to fall dead.

Then the air was split by a thundering boom. Ranger One, having passed through the sound barrier just moments before, streaked through the sky, a missile missing from the right inboard pylon, and banked to the right. Ranger Two was hot on the first ship's heels, already missing the same missile, following the lead bird through the turn perfectly, and the two disappeared back over the mountains to prepare for a second run when it was ready.

They were gone before the laser guided missiles hit. The first flew true, the hardened penetrator passing straight through the heavy armor on the top and burrowing deep into the starship grade armor of the Scarab. It detonated as soon as the tail fins were snapped off, blowing a massive hole in the armor that was quickly obscured by the fireball it kicked up. The laser was gone in all of the activity going on, but the second missile followed close behind, disappearing into the fireball only to blow and feed it even further.

The Scarab struggled to stay upright, but the gun went dark immediately, and it started to shake on its legs, one of them pulled back up into the air. It was as if the massive machine was paralyzed by the strike, and within a few more seconds, it came crashing down as its balance shifted to the left and it toppled, before the reactor blew. It was as if a small nuke had gone off, and a mushroom cloud of fire and smoke climbed into the sky.

Keying the comm, she knew there was no time to waste. "Ranger, good effect on target. Setting up for strike two, same pattern. Cleared hot."

" _Roger, inbound hot from south-west again. Time on target 10 seconds."_

The line cut again as Caesar gave the orders to his wingman, and almost like a promise had been made, the two Broadswords streaked in from over the mountains, engines screaming in the cold air and leaving a pair of contrails. They banked left this time, avoiding the futile return fire from the Scarab, and disappeared, marked only by the thunderclaps they left rolling across the clearing, the death knell of another Scarab.

Then the Scarab went up, just like its brethren, but it blew before it went down, scattering armor and bits of machinery all over the area. The Gausshog that had been skittering across the snowy field was forced to juke left and right, and with a glance, Morgan could see Stacker hanging onto the central roll bar for dear life, likely cussing up a storm as one of the larger pieces of armor came down and stuck into the ground, red hot on one end.

The deep tones of Morgan's voice filled the airwaves. "Scarab threat neutralized, clean up and get to the Citadel, secure the area. Master Chief?"

" _Ma'am._ " He was as quick on the draw as ever.

"Disembark, meet me at the stairs."

Another clipped response, and the channel went dead. Flights of Pelicans started coming over the mountain tops, the threats neutralized enough for more Scorpions to be dropped off on the ridge and for engineer units to settle into place just in case anything else reared its ugly head. Line infantry poured out by the squad, slamming into cover against rocks, snow drifts, anything to have a form of cover as shovels went to work and entrenching tools dug into place.

The whine of the Hornet's engines lowered in pitch and slowed in tone, dropping the aircraft to the field below, where the Master Chief had already touched down, his Marine pair immediately stepping off and scanning the skies. A green painted Phantom swooped into place, the gravity lift activating and dropping a very ready looking Arbiter, energy sword alight with his intent, and a pair of Elites, clad in golden armor with striking green stripes painted over the Forerunner symbols that had been embedded in their armor.

The two Elites scanned the area, mandibles already in animated conversation with their leader as they hefted twin plasma rifles. The gray armored Arbiter seemed to listen, craning his neck to see the approaching figure of The Demon, and finally set his orange, reptilian eyes on Morgan, the Hornet touching down and the canopy popping open.

Vaulting over the edge, her rifle pivoting over her shoulder and into her hand as her Marines stood guard over her bird. Keying the comm one more time, she gave her last order. "Stacker, you're lead until I come back out or Keyes takes over."

" _Copy, Noble. Finish it."_

She didn't respond. There had been enough words for now. The end was in sight, so close she could reach out and touch it almost, and she wanted nothing more than to finally turn the page on this twisted book.

The Master Chief looked down at her as she ascended the steps, standing next to the Elites on top, before he turned to the wide gap between their pedestal and the Citadel proper.

With the arrival of 343 Guilty Spark, fluttering about anxiously and muttering to itself about containment and the array's activation, the Arbiter craned his head down. "The Flood scales the far wall of the Citadel even now. The Prophet will die by _my_ hands, not theirs." It was a promise, one that the two Spartans were all too willing to bring to fruition.

Morgan nodded to him as the bridge sparkled to life, and the five set off across it. "Do what you will, Arbiter, just make sure that he doesn't get a chance to light the rings and send us all to hell with him."

They were moving at a rapid pace, almost at a full sprint, long legs of both species carrying them across quickly, weapons drawn and ready for whatever might await them.

Passing through the threshold and into the Citadel's lower level, Morgan felt something come over her, a headache that seemed to split her skull and make the bile in her stomach rise. She could taste the acidity and her mouth filled with saliva as a voice she missed dearly sounded from the deepest parts of her mind.

" _It asked… and I answered. For a moment of safety… I loosed damnation upon the stars."_

She nearly stumbled, her footing slipping, but she didn't go down. A hand clad in green armor was latched onto her wrist, golden visor already looking back even as he continued to drag her along in his wake, amber light burning in her HUD. She sent the green status light in return, wordlessly thanking him as she got her momentum back up.

Several screens came alive with the visage of the Prophet of Truth, looking haggard even for a Prophet. " _My faithful… stand firm. Though our enemies crowd around us, we tread the blessed path. In a moment, I shall light the rings, and all who believe, shall be saved!_ "

The Prophet drifted to the side, hand coming up and gesturing behind him, where the same Chieftain that had nearly ended her own life held Johnson by the front of his flak vest, the man punching the Chieftain in the face repeatedly, with no results. Even from here, she could see the bruises on his face, the swollen features, the trails of blood leaking from his nose and mouth.

Another voice crackled in her ear, and Morgan frowned. " _Morgan, how close are you?"_

The answer to Keyes' came not from her, but from the Chief. "Not close enough."

Silence for a few moments, and then right before the channel cut, Morgan's blood ran cold. " _So be it."_

The channel cut without another word, and Morgan pushed for every bit of speed she had, outpacing the Elites and the other Spartan until they did the same. Her arms pumped and her boots slapped against the glass flooring like a bell ringing at midnight. Every heartbeat thundered in her ears, louder and louder until it was all she heard.

Sliding to a stop on the elevator platform, she smacked the controls, and it started to drift up just as the rest moved into place, weapons drawn.

It rose far too slowly, taking an eternity to travel the way up, and the sound of Johnson's voice came back to her, blotting out the screams that she had heard while she was getting trashed only a short while ago.

_Folks need heroes, Lieutenant, now smile, would ya? While we still go something to smile about._

Something above crashed, the sound of distant jet wash and what must have been a nasty impact. Gunfire followed soon after, and then it all went quiet again.

Swallowing another wave of bile, she steeled herself, and counted down the changes in the altitude her armor gave her, until it finally came to a stop after a ride far too long for her liking, and as she stepped off with her weapon drawn, a sickly sound came from behind.

All three Elites turned, weapons up and hot, and the Master Chief was ready to paint the walls green as two massive Flood forms stood, a voice coming seemingly from everywhere. " _Do not shoot, but listen! Let me lead you safely to our foe. Only you can halt what he has set in motion!_ "

The green helmet stayed locked onto the right Tank form, and the Elites watched the left as the amber status light blinked once, then a red, and she frowned in her helmet, feeling the weight of the question those lights posed.

Finally, she returned an amber and then a green. _Go with it, but be ready_. A green came back immediately. He would follow her, whatever her decision, but they needed to move now. Her voice carried to the Elites. "Just work with it, we need to stop the rings or nothing will matter anyway."

The Arbiter's orange eyes flickered over to her visor, and she could see the questioning in them, but he eventually turned to move through the open doorway and onto the bridge that led to the Citadel's control center.

Several rings were alight, surrounding the bridge and the remaining Covenant troops. One of them remained dark, shot through with red in some areas. Pushing out first, her rifle was up, and it barked in short bursts as the Elites passed by, twin plasma rifles blazing and the Arbiter's sword shone brightly as the Sangheilli waded into the field of battle. Flood infector forms skittered across the bridge, with the twin Tanks following the Elites, and the Master Chief taking up the rear with Morgan.

Spikers and Maulers roared, mixing with the battle cries of Elites and Brutes alike as the battle started to rage. Morgan stuck close to the Master Chief, both of their weapons barking with each pull of the trigger.

No shot went unplaced, no pull of the trigger was too much or too little, brass flew through the air in a glittering hail that hit the floor and rolled into the shadows to be forgotten forever. Two of the strongest Spartans gracing the battlefield together would have been a slaughter, a guaranteed end to any alien enemies that came into sight. With the addition of one of the strongest Sangheilli warriors, bearing the ancient armor of the Arbiter, and twin warriors that had earned the gold armor that covered them, it was only a matter of time.

Morgan's heart thundered in her ear, the beat becoming a primal rhythm that drove her through Brutes, Grunts, and Jackals alike. Nothing slowed them down as they burned through the remaining Covenant loyalists, passing through two rooms of defenses without stopping for even a second.

Not even the Hunter pair that stood ready, fuel rod guns glowing green with radiation and power, would block their way. One went down under a hail of plasma fire, internal eel colony being burned away by the bright blue blaze. The other fired off its weapon, roaring in agony at the loss of its bonded sibling, and as it raised its weapon to slam down on one of the Elites, the two Tank forms stepped into the way, grabbing the shield before it could come down and overpowering the Hunter before taking it to the ground. The bronze armored behemoth disappeared beneath a wall of pestilence, likely ripped to shreds by the Flood forms that brought it to its end.

Then Morgan saw it, the Brute Chieftain that had caused so much trouble, that had been a thorn in her side for far too long. Even as she sprinted forward towards the last remaining obstacle in her way, she could see the flash of the Pelican, hanging nearly off of the platform, and green armor of a UNSC Marine holding onto a form clad in the gray uniform of a naval officer.

But that wouldn't be enough to stop her. Not yet. Her rifle went to her back as the massive alien's gravity hammer swung in an underhanded arc, coming up and barely missing the Spartan as she slid right. She wouldn't be hit by the same attack again.

Half a ton of Spartan met thousands of pounds of Chieftain, and the two went down in a battle of titans that would decide the end of the war. Two massive arms wrapped around her and tried to squeeze, and she felt the biofoam in her chest start to give way, even as her arms started beating against its face, again and again, going until one of them went down. The helmet cracked and snapped under her barrage, falling off and revealing the wrinkled, gray haired scalp beneath, and a roar from the Chieftain, before she reared back against the increasing pain in her chest, and one final punch sent her fist through its skull in a wave of gore and bits of bone.

The pressure on her chest didn't stop, not until the arms were pulled away by the Master Chief. The battle had ended within four seconds of its beginning, a quick, messy end to something that had nearly killed her. With her chest cavity collapsing against the weakened biofoam, though, it might still end up getting her.

But with another round of biofoam from her armor's injection system, she pushed on with a slight limp, up the steps to where the Elites had already surrounded the final Prophet. Her eyes wandered elsewhere, to the two Human forms leaning against the Pelican that lay hanging halfway off the platform.

Johnson sat quietly, cradling the lifeless form of Commander Miranda Keyes. The blood dripping from cuts and bruises across his face, his broken nose, and the corner of his mouth fell against the flak vest he wore, but he paid it no mind. The two Spartans moved closer, both of them joining in the moment of silence as they stared into the commander's empty eyes.

The moment dragged on for an eternity, and Morgan's gut seemed to seize, despite the numbing effects of the biofoam creeping through her core. She had lost another, and it dug at her. Would she see Keyes there at the end with Noble? She didn't know, but it wasn't time to question that, and Johnson's tired voice, hollow and far away, told them what to do.

"Stop the rings… save the rest."

Morgan continued to stare for another moment, before forcing herself to look away, to turn her entire body from the scene and move for the controls. Even now, the weak voice of the Prophet of Truth spoke to the Arbiter, held aloft by his robes, his ornate headdress seemingly dull in the fading sunlight.

"Can you see… Arbiter? The moment of salvation… is finally at hand." The words were hoarse, the whisper that would fade into the Covenant's final night.

"It shall not last," the big Elite replied, and even now, Morgan saw it. The growths on the Prophet, the tumors showing across the brittle, thin arms.

"Your kind… never believed in the promise of the Sacred Rings," he spoke, a tendril popping out of the leathery skin at the crevice between his shoulder and neck. Morgan's skin crawled even as she moved closer to the controls.

The voice that sounded was closer, darker, one that had her blood turn to ice as things started to change. " _Lies for the weak, beacons for the deluded."_

With more sprouting from the fading Prophet's body, the Arbiter seemed to sense the time to finish this was at hand, and Morgan finally got the control panel. The blue armored hand reached out to touch the yellow symbol on the console, pressing down on it as the Prophet screamed in protest, throat creaking as vocal cords shifted and fought against the parasite and disuse in anything more than a speaking level.

Morgan turned back, turned to look at the final moments of the Prophet as the death knell sounded in a voice clouded by failure, infection, and age. "I am Truth… the voice of the Covenant!"

The Arbiter seized the Prophet's throat in a strong grip, nearly choking him as the final words came. "And so you must be _silenced._ "

The energy sword that had been deactivated the entire time, now hissed back to life, the twin blades piercing Truth's back and emerging through his chest, a rattling breath coming at last as the Prophet of Truth, the instigator of the entire war, and indirectly responsible for the genocide of billions of Humans, fell silent.

A triumphant roar by the Elites, both of the gold armored Sangheilli rising with the Arbiter as they avenged their slain brethren from the beginning of the Great Schism, and finally the Arbiter looked to Morgan and the Chief, seemingly satisfied at having gotten his revenge.

Across the bridge, the six rings had grown dark, and turning back to the Pelican, Morgan could see Johnson carrying Miranda's body into the troop bay, readying it for take off.

Her communicator crackled to life, a voice she had become barely familiar with coming through. " _Noble, I can't reach_ _Masterlock_ _. We've managed to raise ONI Recon team Spooky. MASSCAS event declared. Spooky Actual is bugging out with the data they've grabbed and is returning to_ Aegis Fate _and_ Ode to Autumn _for delivery_ _while they pull out of the Sandtrap area_ _."_

It had been the _Dawn_ 's XO, and she swallowed as she answered. "Masterlock is confirmed KIA. The rings have been shut down. We're moving out with Johnson and the Elites, ETA 15."

The pause on the other end was several seconds long, before a faint sigh reached the comm. The XO had likely tried to hide it, but failed. " _Confirmed, Noble. Unless Spooky takes command, you're lead."_

She frowned, gesturing to the Master Chief and the Elites to come closer. "Understood, keep command of the fleet assets, start pulling ground forces back from the Citadel. Status of the _Shadow of Intent_?"

" _Weapons still offline, but they've managed to seal the ship and sterilized the whole thing."_

"Roger, keep me posted. Noble, out."

With the comm cutting, she bit at her lip, but decided there was nothing more that she could do. "Get on the bird. We're getting out of here."

Her order was received, and the Elites slowly moved over to get into the Pelican, with the two Spartans following at the rear of their line, but the ground started to shake beneath their feet, green tentacles bursting forth from beneath the platform with a blood chilling laugh, one that wrapped a rotten hand around Morgan's heart.

One of the tentacles, shedding a mist of green and mottled gray, pierced one of the Elites on its way up, narrowly missing the rear left thruster pod on the Pelican, and pushed the unfortunate Elite into the sky. It writhed against the force that had penetrated through its heavy armor with no effort. Even as Morgan and the Master Chief moved to get into the Pelican where the Arbiter and the other Elite sat waiting, weapons ready, she saw the flare of blue on gold. A plasma grenade had been activated, and the Elite disappeared in the flash of blue that followed. The massive tentacle was ripped in two, coming down like a felled tree as the Pelican's engines whined loudly and it lifted off, once again barely missing a tentacle that would likely crush it.

With both landing gear out, the Master Chief was the first to make the jump, to leap up and grab on to the left landing leg. The Arbiter reached for his green armored arm, to pull him up, and Morgan latched onto his leg in an attempt to not be left behind, but the moment her hand made contact and her feet left the ground, another one of the tentacles slammed into the right side of the Pelican. The armor dented and bowed in, the bay noticeably deforming inside.

With such a heavy hit, the Master Chief couldn't hold on, even with his prodigious strength, and the Pelican started to go into a flat spin. Morgan held on tightly, a groan escaping her throat as she fought against the rapidly increasing G forces, until she was forced off and back onto the platform. Her armor screeched against the decking as she slid back, until finally her back hit the wall. A cough, but no blood this time, thankfully. She still felt it, the pain creeping further and further into her mind. She could only push it so far into her mind, and she was reaching her breaking point.

Fighting against the urge to keep her eyes shut, she forced them open, her hand grabbing for her magnum and ripping it off of her hip before she forced herself into a shaky stance. A dozen meters away, the Master Chief was already up, assault rifle in hand and moving towards her with his front facing away. The two tank forms that had killed the Hunter pair were encroaching on them, and several infection forms skittered closer quickly. Infected Brutes were coming up the path to them, moving like puppets with thin strings.

With a shuddering breath, she held her pistol up, not one to waste time in a situation like this, and the first shot rang out even as the Gravemind that haunted them, that sought to bury them both here, laughed, its eerie voice speaking in that rhythmic pattern that only irritated her.

" _Now the gate has been unlatched, headstones pushed aside. Corpses shift and offer room, a fate you must abide!"_

The first round that hit smashed into the chest of a Brute combat form, the high explosive round blasting a hole in its chest and killing the puppetmaster inside with a loud pop. Johnson's voice in her ears was filled with static and strain as he fought to keep control of the Pelican, having disappeared out of the entry hole it had come in through.

" _I can't control her! No way I'll be able to pick you back up! Get back to the lift and find a way down!"_

She didn't answer, her pistol barking like a rabid dog with every pull of the trigger. The chattering notes of the assault rifle next to her filled the air with a never ending stream of fire, feeding it all into the chest of the first tank form.

It did little more than cause sickly green bursts of fluid to pop out of its body, splattering to the ground below, and it roared as it galloped forward on its hands and legs, like an oversized gorilla. The Master Chief was more than ready for it, though, firing the rifle one handed until the clip ran dry, his hand already wrapped around a grenade missing its pin.

Morgan watched as he blurred forward, moving faster than she had seen almost any other Spartan, and his hand disappeared into the tank forms chest. It roared loudly into his visor, and she saw only the emotionless faceplate as he yanked his arm back out in a storm of green fluid, before he jumped back and went into a roll.

With the grenade buried deep within its core, the tank form's fate was sealed, and a moment later it detonated in a flurry of rotten body parts and bone, shrapnel pinging off of the surroundings with an audible ricochet sound that was buried once again beneath the flurry of gunfire the Master Chief continued to put out with a newly reloaded magazine.

The slide of her pistol racked back, empty, and she reloaded as the remaining tank form continued to press down on them, and then she saw it. The hilt of an energy sword sat on the ground, next to the piece of gold armor that had fallen near it, and she mentally thanked the Arbiter for bringing Elite swordsmen with him.

With the tank form closing fast, and the Master Chief dealing with other forms that were filling the void left by the first tank, she dove for the energy sword's hilt, snatching it up and going into a roll before she came up and, with the flick of her wrist, the sword activated and came up in an arc as quick as a bolt of lightning, and separated the tank form's arm from its body. A roar and another move, and a leg was gone, until she had bisected the massive Flood creature and left it dead on the ground.

With her pistol in one hand, firing again, and her new energy sword alight with burning plasma, she started to mow the Flood forms down, working with the Chief in a way that needed no words, just like the fight up the bridge. Now, they were fighting their way back through it, their battle far from over.

Guns continued their endless chatter, spitting brass and fire and lead until they were dry, discarded and replaced with plasma rifles and spikers, until they had fought their way through most of the forces in front of them, weapons nearing empty and with no suitable replacements. Red dots continued to come from either side of the bridge, climbing up and over to engage the Spartans. It never subsided, nor waned, merely replenishing losses with every new form the Spartans killed being replaced by two more.

Morgan saw the light at the end of the tunnel, though, their way out of this nightmare, and she called out for him to follow her, before she broke out into a full blown sprint, ignoring the Flood forms still in her way. One reared back with a whip like arm, and she put on a burst of speed that she knew would tear something, and rather than dodge, she closed enough distance that she simply rammed the Flood form, ripping it to pieces and covering her blue armor in green gore as she stormed through the other side and made for the lift with the Master Chief close on her heels.

The sound of several grenade pins being pulled was caught, and then the rattle of them rolling across the ground, and a green status light came back to her before a half dozen explosions went off in their wake.

It didn't stop the multitude of red signatures chasing after them, though. There was a hole on the other side of the lift, one that would be faster than dealing with the slow moving lift, and without thinking too much about it, she pushed off of the ground and took to the air. Her legs pushed out first, stopping her forward momentum when she slammed into the back wall of the chute that led down.

Armor sparked and screeched as she pushed her arms to either side of herself and descended into the darkness, trying to slow her fall even as more sparks fell from above and covered her head and shoulders with the addition of the Chief on her like a shadow.

They fell, further and further, until the light at the bottom began to reach them, and Morgan came down in a heap of armor and limbs, struggling to fight against the sudden impact and push herself out of the way before the heavy form of the Chief hit the ground behind her, landing far more gracefully.

As she lay on the ground, the pain in her chest increasing again, she stared at the ceiling and lay on her back. A green armored hand reached out to her, and she followed it back to the impassive visor that it belonged to. She slowly reached out to it, grabbing hold and being pulled to her feet.

"Are you alright?" The deep voice asked. She frowned in her helmet. No, she wasn't, but that wouldn't be the right answer for a Spartan.

"Still breathing," she replied, and shook her head to clear it before she looked around them, and when she looked to the right, she saw something that made her forget about the pain. A blue figure skipped across the corridor she stared down, blinking like a damaged hologram, until it disappeared around the corner.

Pushing past the other Spartan without a word, she followed after it, seeking out the woman she had seen. He followed behind in silence, unsure of what she had seen, but following nonetheless.

When she rounded the corner, she saw the blue back once again for only a second, before it disappeared. Her frown deepened, and she picked up her pace, not wanting to let her go again. The second corner came and went as she rounded it, and a flash of blue against a dead end was all that met her, the figure gone as if it had never existed, and she wanted to curse.

A control panel sat waiting, lit with a single icon that blinked, as if Cortana had left it for them. She moved for it, her hand coming up and pressing against it before it went dark again and the wall in front of them split down the middle, revealing the late evening sky and the clouds in front of them.

Morgan wanted to sigh, to grow annoyed with it all, but the air seemed to change, and she saw the Master Chief tense on the peripherals of her vision. He barely moved, but Spartans had long ago grown accustomed to the nearly nonexistent movements that were the only expressions they had in their armor, and she realized why as a massive structure rose out of the cloud bank that spread out in front of them.

Another Halo ring rose from the Ark's core, partially complete and missing several core areas that were covered in scaffolding miles across and likely just as thick. He was the one that spoke, angrily, at the humming that she could even now faintly hear.

"When did you know?"

It was an accusation, one that was pointed with heat that she hadn't heard from the other Spartan before.

343 Guilty Spark, hovering around them slowly, almost abashed at it. "Just now. But… I had my hopes. What will you do?"

The Master Chief wasted no time, his words a growl, through gritted teeth and a forward motion that might have been the beginning of a lunge at the orb. " _Light it._ "

Spark, seemingly missing the point the Chief was making, grew excited, bobbing up and down as his tone changed to a happier note. "Wonderful! Then we are agreed! A tactical pulse will completely eradicate the local infestation! I will see to the preparations personally" He bobbed again, spinning and moving to fly off towards the partially completed ring. "It will take time to fabricate a new activation index, I will see to the letter that..."

His voice trailed off, and Morgan felt her shoulders dip as she thought about it. The Flood was already crawling over the Ark. If they made it to the new Halo ring as well, it would be a fight. They would need to activate it without the allied forces being around. Who else could do it but them without risking death in the face of it all?

She had no idea, but in the distance she could see the _Shadow of Intent_ hanging with a few of its remaining CCS class battlecruisers, and the tiny dot of the _Forward Unto Dawn_ nearby. A Pelican was inbound, a dot slowly growing into the shape of the transport aircraft.

They would be leaving one fight and stepping into another, and there wasn't much time. She wouldn't be able to fix herself. They needed every Spartan in the fight, and if she didn't make it, then so be it. She just wanted it all to end.

Looking to the other Spartan, she called out to him. "Chief, promise me something."

His visor tilted and his gravelly voice answered. "Name it."

"Promise me that if I don't make it through this, you'll make it count."

_Tell 'em to make it count_

"I promise." His words were filled with with determination, his voice hard and unyielding against even the potential of the Flood standing in his way.

_Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it_.

Cortana's words rang in her ears, and she looked off into the distance, far up one of the Ark's arms where the ruins of High Charity sat smoldering where they had fallen, and she realized what she had to do.

"We're going to High Charity."


	14. A Promise Fulfilled

" _The Spartans were children, stolen away in the darkest of nights or snatched up from dead families and dead worlds. We made them into killers, machines with no concept of anything but war. Now, with most of them gone, I hope those that remain can learn to live in a world where there is no war to be fought. They have earned their rest, living and dead. To our disposable heroes… I am truly sorry."_

\- Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood, speaking at the unveiling of the Spartan Monument, June 12th, 2554.

* * *

With the Pelican's bay empty save for the two Spartans, Morgan sat hunched forward, elbows against her thighs as she looked out the open bay. The Citadel retreated into the distance, the sun shining down on it until it disappeared behind one of the mountains that sheltered it on all sides.

The massive Flood tentacles that had assaulted them before their mad dash to freedom had retreated, no sign of them on the exterior, but the sign of Flood scaling the wall from somewhere far below the edge of the valley could be seen even from here, like a swarm of ants. They wouldn't be able to interact with the control panel to fire the rings, not after it had been shut down. Still, precautionary measures were being taken, all of the forces that had been deploying before the two had gone into the Citadel now being pulled out rapidly in an attempt to prevent them from falling to the parasite.

She frowned, the pressure in her chest growing. She couldn't keep pumping herself full of biofoam like this. She would run out of room, and eventually stop being able to breathe. It needed to be taken out, to be fixed properly. Her armor said the internal bleeding had stopped after the first dose, but another hard hit and she'd rip open again. She needed to be seen by a medic, needed to take command of the forces left, but she knew there was no time to be fixed properly, and that she had no better training in large scale commands than the _Dawn_ 's XO.

Reaching up and pulling her helmet from her head, she set it next to her, and took a breath of fresh air. It was cold, and it felt dry passing through her nose, but she didn't mind. She was tired of the controlled climate in her suit. Her face was streaked with trails where sweat had run down her face during the fighting. Green eyes looked half dead when she glanced up and saw her reflection in the Master Chief's visor, her hair messy and ruined.

She had kept it at a certain length for years. She had always hated it being shaved short as a child and during training. With her release to ONI and the need to blend in to rebel cells more than once, she let it grow a little past regulations, and kept it in a dark, low profile bun that didn't interfere with her helmet or neural lace. Now, though, with how tangled and messy it had become, it would need to be shaved, and with the impacts to her skull during the encounter in the tower, she had likely sustained more than one nasty blow.

Skin paler than usual even for her covered her face, a bruise forming on her right cheekbone already shifting from the blue-purple color common in early bruising to a gray-green color that made her sick to think about. It almost looked like the Flood, and she hated it. She could have done without seeing them ever again, but fate always seemed to want to get one up on her, regardless of how she felt about things.

With a start, she realized she had been staring into the Chief's visor, more at herself than the man within, and her lips dropped slightly as her frown deepened. "Sorry, didn't mean to stare."

He didn't respond, but after a moment he peeled his own helmet off. Pale skin covered his face, an old scar covering his lips on the left side of a blunt, repeatedly broken nose. Brown eyes beneath a bunched brow, a permanent scowl, stared back at her, but she felt no anger or malice from them. A shaved head, with little more than stubble on it, had several more scars crisscrossing it. Another angry scar curled from his chin up the side of his head, stopping just above his left ear.

He finally spoke after several moments, his deep baritone low and quiet. "You looked like you'd seen a ghost." He shifted, the helmet going to his lap and sitting there, one heavy hand holding it in place.

Morgan nodded, glancing back at the Citadel again, breaking away from the brown eyes that stared back at her. "Something like that..." Looking back to him, she asked a question. "How bad was it? Fighting the Flood on the first Halo?"

Almost immediately, a grimace crossed his face, a sign that it had been as bad as she expected it.

"Bad." One word seemed to sum it all up perfectly, but there was more to it than that. "The infestation on the ring wasn't too bad at first, older combat forms and their infector pods. They weren't in numbers too large in the library's lab area. But then they found the Covenant's ship on the ring, a damaged cruiser that put down for repairs. UNSC forces from land base after the _Pillar of Autumn_ went down tried to move into it and get off the ring."

He paused, and Morgan's eyes narrowed, realizing he wasn't finished. She didn't speak up, her fingers coming together to lace through each other before she rested her hands on her thighs.

"I had to get on board, blow through, get to Captain Keyes, get his CNI to blow the _Autumn'_ s reactors and the ring with it. We – Cortana and I – were already back on the _Autumn_ by the time the Marines took the cruiser. I never got the whole story from the few survivors that managed to escape, but apparently the reactor suffered a meltdown and the whole ship went up. There wasn't any escaping that." Another pause. "What about the second? I was told there had been an outbreak on another ring, between the battle in Mombasa and the alliance with the Elites."

Her face twisted into a frown, stronger than the one before, and her eyes darkened as she repeated his words. "Bad."

She saw a glimmer of a smile, his lips turning upwards for an instant before they stopped and returned to their neutral setting.

Going on, she got to the point. "Tracked the Prophet's carrier through an in-city slipspace jump, came out not far from another ring. Dropped in with Helljumpers and moved to capture or kill the Prophet on my own while the _In Amber Clad_ headed for the library. Flood infestation was… far stronger than you say it was on the first installation. The Gravemind had captured the monitor, the other Halo's analogue for Guilty Spark. Got captured by it myself after nearly getting glassed by the fleet guarding High Charity, the big station that came in hot earlier."

The Chief nodded, his eyes attentive as she went on. "Keyes and Johnson got the activation index, then got captured by Brutes, nearly got forced to light the ring, if the Arbiter's telling the truth about it. The Gravemind sent him and I to two different areas with the ring's transportation grid, and where he got sent, I don't know. I got put on High Charity. That's… where I had to leave Cortana behind. By the time I got out, the whole station was going under, Flood had the whole place under their control and Cortana reported more than once that the garrison fleet was infected and fighting itself. By now, the Gravemind is probably somewhere on the station, and Cortana too. If I know her, she's got the activation index stored in her somewhere."

The Chief's lips held their smile this time, despite the topic. "She loves storing things away for a rainy day, doesn't she?"

Morgan's own lips turned up, and her eyes closed as she thought back to the AI. The Master Chief was right, and that may very well be what got them all out of this.

Another alert sounded from her HUD, and she grabbed it, placing it back over her head and eyeing the symbol in the top left. As the visor came back down, she saw the Master Chief's face had disappeared behind the golden faceplate of his olive drab helmet. A slight frown, but there was no helping it. Her armor was reporting her injuries again, and she cleared it away by pressing her chin to the interior of the helmet, a row of buttons acting as controls.

Taking a deep breath to test her movement, she felt the pressure in her chest increase, and grimaced before she glanced at the open door to the cockpit, where the pilot and copilot sat buried in their control panels. Neither wanted to look back at the two Spartans, or risk getting ambushed even though they were in the open air with nothing around for miles.

She wasn't going to complain, though. She left her helmet on, opening a radio channel to hail the _Dawn_. A few heartbeats passed before the XO answered.

" _Commander,_ _got you on the scope. The Sergeant Major just landed. We've recovered Masterlock."_

There was something in the XO's voice at the mention of Keyes, and Morgan felt her heart drop a little more as she thought back to the woman, but she answered. "Understood. Status on Johnson?"

" _He's banged up pretty bad. Medics are seeing to him now. Gunnery Sergeant Stacker is also aboard, and he made it clear you'd taken some nasty hits yourself._ "

Morgan frowned slightly. The XO of the Dawn was a Lieutenant Commander as well, but had seniority over her. If he deemed it necessary, he could likely order her to be seen, keeping her from the raid on High Charity.

Ultimately, she decided to be seen before he had to tell her. "I'll see a medic on the _Dawn_ , fix what's happened, but we aren't staying long."

" _Ma'am?"_

"You saw the new ring?"

A moment passed before he said yes. " _Affirmative, missing a lot of its structure, but we've got it both on radar and in sight from here._ _Scans are already painting a picture of it for study later._ _"_

"We're firing it. The Master Chief and I will need an activation index to light the ring, but the only way to get one here is to find Cortana. She's on the Covenant station that came down."

His response seemed disbelieving, as if nobody would willingly go there. " _Commander, that thing's covered in Flood."_

 _"_ I know that, but there's no other option. If we don't destroy the Flood here, they'll come back to haunt us again and again, and I don't need to tell you that if they come back to Earth..."

She didn't finish her sentence, and the XO's reply sounded tired. " _Yes ma'am._ _I'll send word to medical and the armory to be ready for your arrival, and to set a Pelican aside."_

"Thank you, Commander. We'll be there soon. Noble out."

The channel clicked and then it was gone. The Master Chief looked across at her, merely giving her a small nod, and said nothing more. Inside her helmet, she exhaled, feeling her shoulders fall, and settled in for the rest of the ride to the _Dawn_.

* * *

Feeling the wheels touch down inside the _Dawn_ 's hangar bay, Morgan almost didn't want to get up. Her body told her to stay, to remain slouched over in the jump seat and let them drag her out on a gurney. But she didn't give in.

She stood, and her legs carried her out of the bay and into the overhead lights, where several medics stood waiting along with uniformed doctors. The Master Chief waved them off from her right, and seeing that the other Spartan had a far more damaged suit of armor, they began to swarm her instead.

She took her helmet off, and set it on the reinforced gurney, before she turned to the Chief, despite the swarm of medical personnel. "Gear up, have the Master Gunnery Sergeant ready replacement parts. I've sent my armor's diagnostics to your suit. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Yes ma'am," he replied, and then he was gone, nothing but a retreating back as she sat down on the gurney and was forced to lie down on her back.

Another cart sat waiting, and she felt the sensation of deja vu. They had done the same thing on Cairo Station, and now they were doing it here. Her chest piece came off, dented and cracked, and went into the cart as they started pushing her. IV lines went into ports on her armor, diagnostics tools were connected, and medical terminology that left her in the dust was going from person to person, leaving her to lie there and be watched like a science experiment.

But with the cart moving underneath her and the thin lines of lighting passing overhead in the corridor now, she could only think of High Charity, even now brimming with more than enough Flood to overwhelm Earth if they made it off of the Ark and into the portal. Even more pressing was Cortana, still somewhere deep in the infested hive where she had been left behind.

A frown. The message that had been found on the crashed ship on Earth had been ruined, corrupted, and whether it was a result of Cortana's own state or the message being damaged somewhere inbetween, she didn't know.

Cortana could be little more than a fragment of herself at this point, left in the clutches of the Gravemind with nothing to give but information to keep herself in one piece, but Morgan knew the AI would never betray Humanity, no matter what.

Right?

She closed her eyes, threw away that thought. It made Morgan sick to her stomach to even think of Cortana turning on Humanity. But that was if she still existed. She had been on that station, alone, with nothing but the voices of a trillion dead souls and a puppet master with rotten strings.

She would get Cortana out, get her home, and stop whatever the Gravemind was plotting. The ring would follow, and then it would be done.

All of it.

* * *

Her cracked armor was gone, replaced by a spotless chest piece, missing the rack that would hold extra shells for a shotgun that always seemed to get lost or broken. It lacked the blue paint she had always chosen, colored olive drab and looking out of place among the blue armor pieces, as the Master Gunnery Sergeant had never repainted it for her. Her helmet, damaged but still working, showed the marks of battle that would stick with her until the end of the fight or the end of her.

She turned it over in her hands, feeling the heavy numbness in her chest and the ghost of the injection point that had allowed medical tools into her chest, dissolved the old biofoam, and reinforced the cracked rib that had broken under the onslaught of the Brute Chieftain that had been left dead on the stairs to the Citadel's control panel. It wasn't healed by any means, but it would hold under strain better than it would if left alone. The others were the same, merely reinforced rather than healed, and with new biofoam in her chest, she would be able to run and fight.

That was all she needed to do.

An armored thumb rubbed across the helmet's visor, the flecks of dirt that had become caked to it marring its reflective visage, and a thin film of dust parted beneath her touch. It felt heavy in her grasp, different than usual, and she inspected it slowly, turning it and looking at every crease and curve, every dent and discoloration, until she got to the back.

The circular port that held the AI chip securely and allowed it to interface with the armor and her own Spartan Neural Interface stared back at her, and her thumb came to rest over it. A heavy weight in her gut reminded her of what came next, and she pushed it aside. It was still there, and she still felt it, but it was just another feeling to shove into the box.

Her helmet came up and over her head, covering the newly shaved black hair and the green eyes, the bruised and scarred pale skin, the aquiline nose and faded, cracked lips. Then she was sealed up again, her body hidden behind layers of armor both physical and otherwise.

Augmented hearing strengthened by the armor's systems heard everything. The rush of air through the vents, the thrum of the engines, her own heartbeat, it all blended together over time until it was gone, just another noise to block out that would hide the sounds of an enemy combatant.

The table in front of her held a shotgun, fully loaded and with a strap wrapped around the stock, holding another full tube's worth of shells. Armored compartments on her armor held more, ready to go into the tube and down the barrel when she called for them. An MA5B sat on her back, already attached to the mag clamps and with a dozen extra magazines worth of ammunition for sustained combat with the never ending tide of the Gravemind's puppets.

Grabbing the shotgun off of the table, she racked the slide just in case, spotting the brass and red colored shell inside, before she was satisfied. Holding it by the stock with one hand, she grabbed her final weapon, an M6D magnum filled with high explosive ammunition. It would make short work of the Flood if it came down to it, a sidearm worth its weight in gold against the hordes of Covenant or the Undead alike. Letting it sit against her hip until the mag plate caught it, she was ready, and turned to the door, leaving the empty armory behind without another look.

Her armor had extra pouches, armored and otherwise, filled with ammunition and supplies. An extra pair of oxygen tanks, enough to fill her stores with another two hours worth of clean air, sat against her lower back, and extra filtration devices had been added to hopefully deal with the infected air in the ruins of High Charity, leading to a tube and port that looked like a rebreather being attached to the pair of tubes in her helmet's cheek area and wrapping around her chin. If it worked, then there would be nothing to worry about short of getting infected by a pod, but if it didn't, then they would only have three and a half hours of search time in what had once been the heart of the Covenant Empire, and now the graveyard of a billion souls.

The door closed behind her with a hiss, and the sound of heavy boots against steel decking came from the left. The Master Chief's golden visor met her own, his armor showing the same modifications, and a similar armament. She nodded, and he nodded back.

"Are you ready?"

The deep voice asked the question simply, and she nodded again. "As I can be."

"Your chest?"

"It'll hold." She didn't go further. They both knew what it was like to fight on their last legs, to keep going until their hearts might stop at any time. It was what Spartans did, and there had been more than one instance where a number of Spartans, mostly Twos, had been extracted on medical birds with no pulse, only to be revived and sent back onto the battle field.

He didn't say anything else, and she sent him a green light before turning away and starting the walk back to the hangar. There were no Marines or Sailors in the halls, most of them already off the ship and aboard the _Shadow of Intent_ or the other two frigates that had returned by now. A plan had been hatched, one that called for the _Dawn_ to be their way off the Ark, and its stores were being left for what remained.

The hangar doors opened, revealing the last few Pelicans still on the ship, some of them spooled up and loading the last few shuttles worth of people. The medics that had treated her and the armorers that had replaced and modified their armor were nearly loaded onto one of two Pelicans. The box full of her damaged armor was strapped in and waiting in the middle of the blood tray. Even now, she could see the figure of the Master Gunnery Sergeant getting his head count before he stepped on board at the end. Turning around, his eyes met hers through the visor, and he gave her a half smile, one that looked strained, and she brought her hand up to touch the brim of the helmet in a final send off.

His eyes said what his words didn't, and he returned the gesture before the rear door came up and covered the bay, save for the transparent window that was built into it, and his face remained for a moment longer before he left it to take his seat.

Now, alone with the Master Chief and the remaining vehicles, she inhaled slowly, and exhaled. There was still a pair of Pelicans left, a half dozen Warthogs, and one Scorpion tank. They had the majority of the ship's armory still intact, in case it was needed, and enough fuel for the vehicles for an extended run, but something told her most of it wouldn't be needed. Gesturing to one of the Pelicans, she started for it, the Master Chief close behind.

She stepped up into the bay and made for the cockpit, the pilot's seat open and waiting as she took her place in it. Behind her, the older Spartan took the co-pilot's seat, the nose gun whirring as it rotated and connected to his armor's systems. The Pelican spooled up slowly, the engines whining loudly until the rear bay door and the bulkhead between the cockpit and the bay shut, blocking it all out.

Expertly, she lifted the Pelican up and took it out of the bay, where the _Dawn_ continued to hover outside of the _Shadow of Intent_ , where the other frigates had retreated to. Keying her comm, she called out to the _Dawn'_ s XO. "Spartans are away, _Dawn_ should be empty."

" _Confirmed, Spartans away. Johnson is finishing the last bit of transfers up, and then he'll be boarding the_ Dawn _and waiting for your signal. We'll stay here on the_ Intent, _just in case, but..._ " The XO of the warship paused, before he found his words. " _Good luck, Spartans."_

Morgan cut the channel without responding. In the distance, she could see High Charity, smoking and covered by the late afternoon sun. It would be dark, save for whatever lights still remained on in the station. She dreaded the thought of fighting the Flood where they lived enough as it was, but in the dark? It made her skin crawl to think of what may be hiding in there. Her exit from the station had been filled with Flood at every turn, and had been a fight she had escaped from by the skin of her teeth. With the Gravemind having its tentacles buried inside of it to its core, she had no clue what new monstrosities the creature could have made.

Clean airspace was all that she could see from the cockpit to their objective, and with a Pelican that wasn't taking fire, it was almost peaceful. It was the eye of the hurricane. They had come out of one end of the pestilent storm, into the calm of the eye, and now they were about to dive in to the other side and hopefully come out after into a world where the storm had passed.

The controls in her hands were steady, no shaking or jitters, no alarms or the bright sign of a MASTER CAUTION. The tanks were full and their stores were loaded down with ammo for the Pelican's weapons and their own. A glance over her shoulder and she saw a hint of the olive armored giant that was with her, before her eyes settled on High Charity again. She frowned, wanting to turn back, to never set foot in the station, but she knew she couldn't. She had to push on, for Humanity, for herself, for Cortana.

Pushing forward on the throttle, they picked up speed, passing through mach two and slowly dropping altitude, putting the velocity vector directly on the station's center. They would be heading straight for it, and at this speed, they'd be there in just another half hour.

The arms of the Ark rose up in every cardinal direction, expanding and then curving up gently, covered in every biome and with bodies of water spattered like blue paint against the greens, tans, and whites. It was almost a paradise, in a way. Extracted from the galaxy and isolated from everything, it could be a place for someone to live and never explore completely. It would take hundreds of years to discover everything, even with the automated map systems.

But something told her that she wouldn't be coming back after this. With the Flood on it, even exterminated, she didn't want to set foot here again if she didn't have to.

The time passed quickly, as if blinking by as she pondered the installation's size and purpose outside of what Spark had told them, knowing it was a foundry for more of the rings, and who knew what else.

High Charity filled the canopy slowly at first, until it was completely taking it up, and an icon popped up near a large hole in the outer hull, pinged by the Master Chief. Pulling the stick ever so slightly, she took them into a slow turn that aimed them right at it, and she pulled back on the throttle as they closed in, until she was merely hovering the dropship, before she leaned them forward and moved inside of the hull.

Floodlights on the Pelican's wing roots and another attached to the housing of the nose turret flicked on, and she felt herself recoil at the sight of the infestation. The elegant, purple curves that had been so favored by the Covenant were almost completely hidden beneath the sickly greenish-gray and orangeish-brown biomass that had grown enough to cover up any sign of the Covenant's presence. Massive pustules and blobs covered the walls and floors here and there, and columns of the material went from floor to ceiling as thick as tree trunks and just as tall.

Slowly, she breathed in, and then out, to still her nerves, before ordering the Pelican down towards a ridge that extended out from one of the rooms that had been taken by the Flood. The nose led the way, the chin turret rotating and swiveling as it searched for threats. Several combat forms could be seen meandering around the area, and with the pull of the firing stud under the Master Chief's finger, the gun roared in short bursts. Heavy slugs, high explosive rather than armor piercing, dug into their targets, ripping them to shreds and blowing up the remains, until there was nothing left but charred and smoking holes in the infected floors and walls. Several of the pustules built into the walls had been popped, infector forms flooding out before they, too, were destroyed.

The voice in her ear sounded, the Master Chief telling her it was clear to put down, and she turned the ship around to set it down on the ridge even as he left the copilot's seat and went to the back. Putting them down, she opened the bay door and waited.

" _Clear_." The response was all she needed, and she shut the engines down before pulling herself from the seat and grabbing her shotgun in both hands, moving to join the other Spartan. Her boots on the deck sounded until she was right behind him, and almost on cue, he stepped out and into the muck, leading the way into the first room.

Craters where the rounds had impacted were twitching slightly, as if attempting to heal or recoil from any further punishment. Her shotgun was up and scanning, the beam of a flashlight on the barrel crossing the walls that grew darker the further they moved from the landing zone. If any lights still worked deeper inside, she would be surprised. Activating the low light mode for her visor brightened everything up, but it didn't do much for her here.

A door on the opposite wall from where the Pelican was already growing cold opened, then shut again, hitting a thick tentacle that lay on the path, before it tried once again to restart the opening cycle. A frown, and she closed her eyes. Data transfer between her sets of armor were a thing, but whatever maps she had of the place from her last visit wouldn't be very useful, given she didn't even know where she had been the first time.

Opening them again, she bit down at her slowly growing frustration, shoving it back inside. "The place is overgrown with the Flood's… mass. There's no telling how many corridors have been shut or opened up with how its grown in. Can we track Cortana's signal?"

The Master Chief glanced back, the light on his rifle burning alone until he turned his helmet lamps on. "Maybe. She might be unable to transmit if she's buried in a Flood controlled terminal. Do you think you can guide us to where you put her chip in?"

"I don't know, but if all else fails, we can go up." She replied, her own helmet lamps coming on and bathing more of the area in white light.

With no disagreement, she took the lead, her shotgun sweeping as she ducked through the endlessly cycling door, and carried on through. Some remnants of the purple metal could be seen here and there underneath the disgusting Flood material, and the squelching sound with every bootstep sometimes gave way to the clunk of hitting the metal underneath from time to time.

The passageways were sometimes lit by overhead lighting, flickering on and off in its damaged state. Other times, they were dark and foreboding, and only their lights playing across the walls and their motion trackers would tell them whether or not a nightmare sat waiting.

Another door opened to a wide open room, one filled with what could have been natural lighting, but instead was merely the lights in the ceiling shining through the Flood's biomass, tinting the room a bright, but sinister color. Morgan took the first step in and stopped, a massive pressure hitting her head even as she felt the Master Chief coming up beside her.

A voice sounded, one familiar yet infinitely unknown. A man, a woman, a child, all mixed together and filling every corner of her mind with its presence. The boom of a rifle off to her left, and the Master Chief took the lead as her vitals flared even on her own HUD. " _Child of my enemy, why have you come? I offer no forgiveness, a father's sins pass to his son._ "

Another voice came in as the first died and the pressure disappeared, leaving Morgan feeling as if her breath had been stolen away. "-ond. Commander, can you hear me?"

More gunfire filled the air as she got her breathing under control. "I hear you, Chief."

"What happened?"

He wasn't looking back at her, more Flood filing into the room in the form of combat forms and infector pods. His rifle continued to bark and chatter, brass flying and getting lost in the muck below.

"I don't know. I heard it, the Gravemind. It felt like… like when Cortana would enter my mind, but more pressure, no icey feeling."

A glance over his shoulder, one that she didn't miss as she slung the shotgun onto her back and pulled her pistol from her thigh, taking accurate shots at the Flood as they tried to enter the room.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine."

There wasn't another question, but she knew if he was the one getting these feelings, she'd be just as concerned. A green light was sent out, and she held it as her pistol continued to buck against her palm until the ammunition was expended. The slide locked back and the magazine dropped, replaced by another in a heartbeat. Each round continued to hit home right where she told it to, the infector form in each combat form's chest popping and leaving the combat form to drop, lifeless, into the biomass.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Smoke wafted from the barrel of the chief's rifle, and Morgan's pistol was back on her thigh with her shotgun held in both hands again.

The two stepped off from their perch, making their way down a set of stairs that had been covered over for who knew how long. The Chief took the lead this time, though, and she stared at his massive back from behind, her eyes going back and forth from her motion tracker even as they took in the details on the armor he wore. Red blips were constantly on the tracker this time, getting contact hits on the Flood above and below them, and she frowned as she lowered the sensitivity and the range to something that cleared the tracker screen slightly, but not enough to fully filter it all out. Anything further and she'd lose too much situational awareness.

Ahead of her, the _whoosh_ of another door opening sounded from the other side of the Spartan II, and his shoulders shifted as he went through, checking left and right with his rifle leading the way. Another pulse filled her mind though, this time followed by that feeling she knew too well, one of ice water flooding through her mind, and she could hear Cortana's voice, defeated and weary, broken.

" _I ran, I tried to stay hidden, but there was no escape! He cornered me, wrapped me tight… and brought me close."_

Morgan flinched at the implication the words brought forth, and then she saw it. The Chief's vitals flared, then flatlined, but he remained on his feet, and she grabbed at his shoulder, turning him around. His weapon was up and in her face, but he didn't fire, and quickly lowered it.

He shook his head, the helmet shifting, breaking the steeled facade that she had known him for. "She's compromised." The words came out certain, and Morgan felt ice hit her heart rather than her mind.

"How do you know?" She wanted to doubt him, but the voice that came to her didn't sound too stable.

"She's broken, or she's given up information to the Gravemind. She referenced something only a few know about."

Her eyes narrowed behind her helmet. "How bad?"

"Not bad, personal, but still means we don't know what may have been given up."

"Understood. Your armor showed you flatlined. Was that the contact?"

He nodded, and glanced over his shoulder as another bright contact showed on the motion tracker, but then it dimmed again. "The same thing happened to you. I almost turned around, but then I heard her voice, I felt her in my mind."

Morgan frowned, but she knew they didn't have time to debate with their air running out by the second and the possibility of the Gravemind cracking Cortana's defense. "We need to move faster."

Without a word, the Chief turned back around, moving into the next corridor. It was a four way intersection, and Morgan passed by him, heading straight through into another series of winding corridors before another intersection came up. Stepping straight ahead again, Morgan led the way through.

A massive room yawned open ahead, one with multiple dangling objects that remained mostly uncovered, and her armor blared an alarm. Radiation was being emitted from each of the four structures, and she keyed her comm.

"Radiation alarm, likely reactors." Marking it on her map, she made a note to come back if they didn't find the _In Amber Clad_ first. "We'll set it off on our way back through, after we've found her."

A green light. He agreed. Good.

There was only one way to go that didn't have them going around the rim, only heading deeper into the structure, and that was forward. A thin line of biomass and steel was the way across, and she flashed her green light, then amber, then green again. _Proceed with caution_.

Her shotgun stayed out, even as the Chief kept his assault rifle handy, the two ready to cut up anything that came across.

The Flood in the room continued to stumble about, as if drunk or half asleep, they didn't seem to notice the two Spartans moving across the thin beam until they were halfway across, and then it all went to hell.

Morgan's shotgun boomed as the first form grunted, growled, and turned to the two, sprinting at them and getting put down by the single shell. The rest, alerted by the sound, rushed forth, filling the beam in a way that only pulled fear into her veins. Behind her, she could feel the Master Chief's back press up against hers, and the sound of his rifle chattering went up.

Her shotgun held in one hand, her pistol came up, putting the Flood down one by one until it was empty and back on her thigh. Back in both hands, her shotgun fired again, turning into a rhythm. _Boom_ , _chick-chack. Boom, chick-chack._ It went until empty, and the first shells from the stock came down and into the tube.

She got half of it loaded before she had to fire again, the Flood nearly touching the barrel by the time it was blown back and into its brethren. Several were knocked aside by the body, a few falling over the edge and into the abyss. At one point, one of the reactor pylons exploded, sending another wash of radiation out that caused the alarm to blare again, only for Morgan to silence it with a bump from her chin.

She tried to back away, but the Master Chief behind her offered no room. He had to have been backed against his own wall as it was, and her shotgun was dropped as it ran dry once more, fortunately not falling over the edge even as she pulled her assault rifle out and flicked the safety off, the trigger pulling back immediately as she fed the whole magazine through the gun.

The flashes of light from the barrel were rapid, the rifle's staccato chatter going off endlessly as the number 60 dropped to 0 on the ammunition feed. The magazine ran dry, and another went in, the trigger being held down immediately. Another magazine went dry, the rifles from each Spartan chattering in a never ending conversation as they held off the throngs of Flood.

Finally, the fight was over, both sides of the 'bridge' covered in bodies. The shell casings were gone, ejected over the edge and into the darkness below. Morgan kept her rifle up, barrel glowing orange and smoke wafting out of the barrel and the chamber, the half full magazine counter staring at her as she crouched down to grab her shotgun. She slung the rifle and went about loading her shotgun, satisfying her need to have a big gun at the ready before she reloaded the pistol while it remained on her thigh.

"Status." She said, not taking her eyes off the mountain of bodies.

"Green."

That was all that was needed, and with the sound of the Master Chief's rifle clicking as it was reloaded, she stepped off slowly, kicking each corpse into the abyss as she came to it, shotgun pointed down at the ground, ready to finish what wasn't already dead.

Nothing reached out to grab her though, nothing tried to drag her down into the darkness below, but something almost did.

Her HUD started to flicker, and the pressure entered her mind once more as her HUD flickered a dark blue and distorted. _"I have walked the edge of the abyss. I have seen your future, and I have learned!"_

It was panicked, wildly switching between a low and high pitch, until the last word was almost unintelligible and the neural link between her and her armor caused the speakers to screech, nearly shattering her sensitive eardrums as she stumbled.

The Master Chief's hand grabbed her shoulder, preventing her from tripping over one of the remaining Flood corpses and going over the edge. Her hand came up to her helmet, and she tried to press it against her temple until she remembered that it was getting in the way. The urge to rip the helmet off and throw it as hard as she could came to her, and it must have been telegraphed as her hand scrambled for the helmet release switch on the underside of the left cheek.

But her hand never made it there, the Master Chief's massive arm coming around and fitting around her chest plate almost completely, before his other reached around and completed the circle, rifle still in hand. She struggled, trying to break free, until the ringing stopped finally, and she relaxed.

Feeling the struggle stop, the Master Chief released her, a red light blinking to life on her HUD, now returned to normal. It flashed three times and stopped.

An amber light responded, blinking twice, and then a red, before she spoke, feeling out of breath. "We need to hurry. It's getting worse. I think she's still active somewhere, and she's picking up on our armor's transponder without realizing what she's doing."

The Chief nodded. "Agreed. I'll stay behind you in case it happens again."

With the situation worsening through no fault of her own, Morgan stepped over the remaining corpses, no longer able to take her time as she'd wished she could, and crossed the rest of the bridge without incident.

A throbbing in her head made her grit her teeth. It felt like the worst headache she could imagine, and it traveled from the back of her eyes to the neural lace at the base of her skull. It would go away in time, she hoped, as she crossed through the door at the end of the room and into another hallway, shotgun leading the way with a full tube and a shell in the chamber.

She frowned, despite the pain, as she remembered what had happened during that little moment of hers, nearly taking her helmet off. Had she done that, she no doubt would have been infected by any of the spores in the air, microscopic or other wise, and she swallowed a new lump in her throat. Only the Master Chief's quick thinking had saved her from succumbing to a moment of desperation mixed with fear. Had it been anyone but another Spartan, she would have ended up going through with it.

The hallway was empty, with no metal showing through at all, and she grimaced. It was getting worse. They were nearing the heart of the infection, and likely Cortana's position. Several skulls and bones littered the floor, left unconsumed by the Flood for some reason. She didn't like to think of what that reason might be.

The door at the end opened up prematurely, showing them an open room with a single pedestal inside, one that had an electric blue glow on top of it. Her heart nearly climbed into her throat as she saw it. She held up a hand though, stopping the Spartan behind her. "She's there. Move slow, possible ambush."

He stood with his rifle ready, aimed at the area around the pedestal, and she crept forward slowly, shotgun raised and an eye on her motion tracker, but nothing ever came. She was finally there, right in front of them, when the Master Chief was beckoned forward.

With no way through the shield housing the AI, Morgan raised the shotgun in her hands and smashed the stock against it once, twice, and a third time, before it shattered and revealed Cortana, lying where the light had been inside. She looked dejected, exhausted, and like she wanted to curl up and hide. The animated code that was always on her frame was absent, a dull blue nothingness replacing it.

Morgan knelt down in the muck, feeling her knee sink into it, and the Master Chief stood ready, his visor on the woman inside.

Cortana's first true words to them sounded as if she had just escaped a massive strain, but she didn't move. "You found me… but so much of me is wrong, broken. It took… it tried to take _everything from me_."

Looking back on those final moments, when the portal to the keyship had carried her inside, and left Cortana to the Flood, Morgan felt something tear at her. Swallowing, she moved closer, the light from Cortana's form reflecting off of the gold, dirt covered visor. "I promised I would come back for you."

Cortana didn't speak for a moment, but eventually she rolled over, bringing her knees back to her chest. Electric blue eyes searched out the dark green behind the visor, as if looking to see if it was all a dream. Morgan couldn't take the helmet off, but she did depolarize the visor, so that Cortana could see her through the dirt and grime and whatever else had been splashed onto it.

Finally, it got something out of her, and Cortana gave a synthetic sigh, pushing herself to a seated position as she wrapped her arms around her legs. Her eyes broke away, and noticed the Chief standing next to Morgan, and Cortana's broken appearance brightened slightly, the breath of a laugh dying as her mouth opened slightly.

"I should have known they'd never keep the two of you down for long. It's good to see you again, John."

The Master Chief joined Morgan in the muck, his assault rifle hidden below the pedestal as he leaned in. "It takes more than bleeding out to stop me." A hint of mirth in his voice, but that was all he allowed, and he was back to business. "Do you still have it?"

Cortana's smile scrunched up, into a thoughtful expression, before she realized what it was a moment later, an eternity for an AI. Producing the activation index for the Halo array, she held it aloft, and Morgan nodded in satisfaction. "A little souvenir I held onto… just in case," she said, a smirk etching its way onto her artificial lips. "So… how are we getting out of here?"

The Master Chief answered her, rising back to his feet. "I thought I'd try shooting my way out, mix things up a little."

Morgan's visor looked over to him, and his visor shifted to meet her gaze, only to see the blue armored Spartan shake her head, as if disbelieving. It did little to quench his good spirits at reuniting with the AI.

She held out her hand to them, looking between the two Spartans, when Morgan looked back to the Chief. Already, he had the AI chip from his helmet in hand, holding it out to her. Cortana smiled again, a genuine smile, and pressed her hand to the chip's core before she disappeared into it.

Reinserting it into his helmet, he jolted a bit as the sensation of her entering his mind came back to him, before Cortana's voice filtered in over Morgan's comms. " _Keep your head down. There's two of us in here now, remember?"_

Morgan felt some of the tension lift off of her. She had recovered her friend, and they were ready to stop this once and for all. Now they just needed to get out of this mass grave and onto the ring, and then it would all be over. Just a few more hours and everything would change.

But they would be a long few hours, the longest of her life, and a disembodied voice hit the pair hard, as if the walls themselves had grown hundreds of mouths to scream at them. It was a blend of man, woman, and child from across millennia. " _Now, at last, I see it – Her secret_ _ **revealed**_ _!"_

Cortana's only response was a weak sounding request to get her out of High Charity. In other words, step on the gas.

Morgan took the lead, calling out to her partner. "Chief, reactor room, we've gotta blow the place before the infection can spread any further. Cortana, can you get us a route that's quickest?"

The Chief said nothing, but Cortana's voice gained strength as she was given a purpose. " _Analyzing using your armor's systems now, but it'll take some time. Just keep going straight until I tell you to turn, Si_ _x_."

Morgan didn't respond, letting her shotgun lead the way as she had on the way in. The hallways leading back to the reactor room were empty, as if the Gravemind was setting an ambush, and her grip on the shotgun tightened. The second door to open was where they needed to go, and it was, as she suspected, brimming with Flood husks.

A howl went up that could have rattled bones if hers weren't encased in armor. Her shotgun returned to one hand, the other grabbing her pistol and picking off targets that rushed the bridge, but her motion tracker showed a threat to the right. With her pistol still firing, one hand gripped the pistol grip of the shotgun and aimed it from her hip, pulling the trigger and evaporating the Flood form that had tried to close to swiping distance. The weapon bucked hard, the eight gauge shell having enough power behind it to give a Spartan a run for their money firing it one handed.

She grunted as she absorbed the shock, her pistol firing until the magazine was empty and replaced before she left it on her hip. Now, with both hands on the shotgun, she gave it a hefty pump and scanned the area.

The Master Chief was already engaging, his form awash in the muzzle flash of his MA5B as he unloaded the magazine into the Flood that were trying to cross the bridge. "Follow me, grab whatever explosives you have and get them ready."

He didn't wait for her, moving onto the thin bridge and continuing his unceasing onslaught of fire on the enemy. She tucked in behind him, keeping her shotgun trained at their rear in case of a pincer attack.

Reaching the first of the reactor pylons, Morgan pulled a grenade from her belt and yanked the pin. Pinging loudly, the top of the grenade released and flew into the abyss below, even as she counted every second, waiting for the perfect time, and finally threw it at one of the pylons.

It went off perfectly, slamming into the side of the pylon and detonating, her timing impeccable. The pylon followed the grenade, shredded by the explosion even as shrapnel pinged off of their shields and into the front line of the Flood. Damaged already from the crash and the fall of High Charity, the first reactor pylon failed, an internal explosion ripping it to pieces before it caught fire, an eerie blue glow followed by the ear shattering roar of the Gravemind.

The others went the same route, blowing up and starting a chain reaction that brought forth ever louder roars of pain. Cortana's voice drowned it out as she gave their next directions, urgency in her voice. " _We need to get moving! You've hurt it, but not for long, and it won't stop until it gets you_!"

Morgan didn't doubt her, and as they pushed off the other end of the bridge and cleared the remaining Flood, she took the lead again, leaving the room through the door they had entered on their way through the first time. Several Flood forms had died in the threshold, leaving it nearly jammed open with how many corpses had come down in the entrance.

Radiation alarms continued to go off in her helmet, the warnings climbing into higher levels of severity as they stepped back into the hallway and moved forward, following Cortana's instructions and moving at a faster pace than they had come in with.

Another door opened, revealing a corridor filled with debris and destroyed pieces of the corridor that had come through a hole in the ceiling. Cortana's instructions came late, sounding frazzled. " _This route is a no-go. Hang on… There's a hole in the wall that will get you into a maintenance corridor, head that way_." A flickering yellow icon on her HUD showed the hole, and Morgan turned, helmet lamps and shotgun flashlight playing across it. Moving for it, she ducked down and stepped inside, weapon up and leading the way.

The Chief followed close behind, the screams of more Flood echoing off the walls from where they had come. Morgan didn't look back, instead focusing on the slumped over form at the end of the maintenance corridor, covered in black armor and an opal visor.

It was an ODST, sealed up completely in armor and laying next to a discarded rocket launcher, both tubes empty. "How the…?" Her words trailed off. He had likely been on the _In Amber Clad_ , but how had he made it here and not been transformed by the Flood?

Another howl, and more red dots on her motion tracker flooding in from behind. It didn't matter. Passing by the corpse, she came out the other side, into another corridor lined with flickering lights and more debris, but not enough to block the hall off. "Cortana, where to now?"

" _Head straight, I'm reading a UNSC IFF transponder, assigned to a Pelican on board the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn._ "

"That's our ride out. We're almost out of here, Cortana."

" _The sooner the better._ "

Water had leaked into the corridor at some location as it traveled down towards the next level. Ankle deep water waited for them near the next door, and Morgan frowned as she thought about flooded sections. If they had to reroute again due to more damage, it would just lower their odds further and further. Coming to the next door, it slid open, and Morgan spared a glance at the top left corner of her HUD. Her air supply was down to a half hour left on internal air. Grabbing the first tank from it's spot on her armor, she held it up, gesturing to the Chief over her shoulder.

He got the signal, and she heard his own tank clink softly as it was pulled from his armor. The rebreather assembly they had hastily added on to their helmets had a section in the center, directly in front of where her mouth would have been, that would feed air into the helmet through the tubes leading to either cheek, and from there into the internal storage.

Pressing the nozzle of the tank to it, the seal was broken after being protected from the contaminated air, and she could hear the soft hissing of air filling her helmet, the number that had been counting down reversing until it was back up to 83 minutes left on the clock.

Satisfied, she tossed the canister and brought her shotgun back up, listening as it splashed into the water and disappeared in the dimness. "83 minutes left. We should be out in no more than 15 if we don't get sidetracked again."

"Sitting at 80. Ready to move."

The Chief's response was short and to the point. All the better. Resuming her pace, she stepped through the door into a four way intersection. One of the doors, directly ahead, was dark with the lack of power flowing to it. The one off to the left was still bright and ready to open, but to the right, the door was jammed open, continuously opening and closing against a limp tentacle.

This was it.

Moving into the room, she scanned with her shotgun. Pockmarks and craters in the floor remained, along with multiple combat forms that had been ripped apart or mulched by heavy fire. A couple of tank forms were lying dead near their compatriots and-

Wait.

They hadn't fought any tank forms earlier, and the Pelican hadn't shot any.

"Contact!" The Chief had realized it too, and opened fire on one of the tank forms, his assault rifle chattering in protest at their presence and ripping into it. Now, the jig was up, and the tank forms rose to their feet rapidly, up and sprinting for them even as the Chief continued to fire.

Three of them had lumbered to their feet, intent on stopping the Spartans, even as another howl sounded through the walls. Whatever had been following them after their detour had caught up, and she grimaced in her helmet.

" _It's getting a little crowded here..."_ Cortana called out over the comm, her voice sounding more than a little worried. Morgan felt the same, but with three tanks between them and the Pelican out, they had very little choice on how to move forward.

Ducking under a swing from the tree trunk of an arm one of the tank forms possessed as it got close enough, she fired her shotgun up into its arm as it passed, mulching it at the shoulder and sending it flying. With one less arm, it roared, and the Gravemind's voice echoed once again.

" _Submit! End your torment and my own!"_

It made her skin crawl, the thought of giving up and becoming little more than a puppet to be used against Humanity made her feel sick. But she didn't answer back, only racked the slide again and pumped two more shells into the tank's back. It went down, groaning its last as it fell apart. The other two were focused on the Chief, and thinking quickly, Morgan laid her plan out.

"Chief! I'm going for the Pelican, get ready to move!"

No answer. She didn't need one. She was already sprinting for the Pelican, armored boots kicking up a fantail of liquid and biomass as her strides slammed into the flesh like flooring before hitting the metal underneath. The Pelican was just outside and if she could get it in the air, they could skip the fighting. Just a little further-

She was taken off her feet, a nasty crack sounding in her chest and a flash of red pain. A combat form had been hiding around the corner, and as its massive tentacle arm recoiled back after a nasty strike at the Spartan, she felt her back hit the ground. Forcing herself to breathe, she ripped her pistol from her thigh to put a bullet in the combat form, but already its tentacle had cracked like a whip, hitting her arm and wrapping around it, the pistol flying away, before it began pulling at her and galloping closer to finish the job, to infect another.

She refused to let that happen, and one of her knives was already in hand. A single, heavy swing, and the tentacle was severed, her rifle coming off of her back and firing on full auto without even being aimed.

It did the job, and the Flood form was put down like a rabid dog. She left the pistol behind, scooping the shotgun off the ground and barreling for the Pelican again even as she forced her lungs to draw in some more air. The cockpit was empty, but she made sure to clear it with her shotgun before she dropped into the pilot's seat.

Armored hands flew across the control panel and the engines started to hiss, whine, and finally roar as they came to life and the Pelican started to lift off of the ground. Wheezing into the comm, she tried to alert the Chief.

"Evac, fl- flying. Get aboard!" With another thought, she flashed her green light three times quickly, trying to get his attention, and twisting to see around the bulkhead and out the rear door, she saw he had downed one of the other tank forms and managed to disengage from the second, his armor covered in gore and one of his shoulder pauldrons having been ripped off by the tank. A nasty dent in the chest armor showed how close even the Master Chief had come to getting dropped.

Then she saw the door open, Flood forms numbering far too many to count pushed through behind the tank form and swarmed around it. It was tens, likely hundreds of Flood forms, having gathered together to try and stop their evacuation.

The Chief wasn't even on the Pelican yet when she pushed the throttle up, timing it close enough for him to jump and dive into the bay, sliding across it as the swarm of Flood reached their position, several managing to grab on to the bar door before being put down by the Chief's rifle as they peeked over the rim and he fired from the floor. A tentacle, larger than the tanks, rose to meet them, and given its size, it would bring down the Pelican with ease.

Thinking quickly, Morgan flipped the switch on the console to give the pilot weapons control, and jammed down on the firing stud. The cannon in the nose came to life, roaring in defiance of the Gravemind's last ditch attempt at stopping them. Rounds peppered it, exploding and ripping chunks out of it even as another, inhuman screech sounded, rattling the Pelican and the Spartans inside.

It eventually went down, felled like a tree, but not before falling towards them. Jinking to the right, the Pelican barely avoided being hit directly, but the left wing wasn't so lucky. As the tentacle fell, it came down on the left front engine nacelle, crushing the nacelle and causing the Pelican to dip to the left and start to yaw in the same direction. Stifling a yell, Morgan yanked at the controls, sending the left wing further into a dip and forcing the tentacle to slide off, nearly nose diving them back into the place they had just left. Smashing the bay door close button while she had the chance, she fought the bird even harder.

It continued to spin, but the altitude drop was stopped, and with a few adjustments, she got it to start rising once more, her heart thundering in her chest as she fed more power into the remaining engines as she found its equilibrium.

Breaking out of the infected station, the Pelican soared into open air once more, trailing thick black smoke from the left front engine. The wing was crushed and crumpled, and the engine nacelle was nearly closed at the front, with far too little air to maintain operation feeding through the intake. It blared an alarm that she silenced, before shutting the engine off completely. The black smoke thinned a bit, but it continued to come. There was a fire somewhere inside, and she knew the bird wouldn't last too much longer after that hit.

With the ring high up in front of them, Morgan pushed the throttle all the way forward. It would get them there faster, but it would be risky. The other engines could fail at any time if the fire met the control lines or hit one of the fuel tanks.

Calling back to the Chief, she got a few words out this time without sounding like she would keel over at any moment. "Chief, you al- alright back there?"

His response was slow, and when it came, he sounded out of breath as well. "Affirmative. That was close. Too close."

" _I guess you just got lucky, huh?"_ Cortana was quick to reply to that, and a moment later, she heard his helmet tap against the bulkhead, a gentle laugh coming from the AI. " _Sorry."_

"Good. Get up here and help me then."

"Yes, ma'am."

He appeared behind her a moment later, sliding into the copilot's seat and putting Cortana's AI chip into the Pelican. She appeared next to Morgan a few moments later, standing on the small holopad with her arms crossed. She smiled slightly as Morgan glanced over.

An acknowledging nod, and Morgan settled back in the seat, feeling her chest shift as she did. With working biofoam dispensers, her armor dealt with it, and she felt the biofoam inside of her chest refreshing and stabilizing the injury.

The _Shadow of Intent_ loomed off to the side of the ring, hanging there as if judging the Pelican for what it was doing. A comms channel opened up, and the shipmaster spoke aloud through it.

" _We are aboard, Humans and Sangheilli. We will make for the portal in a few moments time."_

Morgan sighed softly, realizing they would be alone in just a few minutes, left behind far outside of the galaxy and with nothing but the Flood for company. "Understood. Get everyone back to Earth safely, Shipmaster. You have my thanks."

" _And you, ours, Spartan. Your sergeant is taking your frigate from our hangar bay. Good luck, to all of you."_

With the click of the comms channel cutting, another came through, one that was preceded by the insignia of the _Forward Unto Dawn_. Johnson was calling them now.

"Johnson, we're receiving."

Appearing on a small monitor off to her left, Johnson could be seen, backlit by the bridge lights on the _Dawn_. " _Roger that. I'm still getting the_ Dawn _ready to go_ _. When I get to Halo, I'll land as close to the control center as I can._ "

Cortana huffed, catching the Sergeant Major's eye, a grin showing despite his weary features. "Keep in mind that _safe_ is better than _close_ , Sergeant Major."

" _Roger that_ _, and ma'am? It's good to have you back. I'll meet you all on the ring soon. Johnson out."_

The channel cut, and with the rise through the atmosphere of the Ark and back into void of space, the engine fire went out, but the damage had been done. They had nothing now but a short ride and a bumpy landing, and then?

Hopefully an end.


	15. Were It So Easy

" _CAUTION. STALL SPEED. CAUTION. STALL SPEED. PULL UP-_ "

Morgan tuned it out. This bird was going down, and it was going down fast. Things had snowballed the moment they hit the ring's atmosphere. The control room, surrounded by cold air and a constant snowfall, wasn't the best place for a wounded Pelican.

The fire had been out, but the damaged engine wasn't restarting, and she didn't trust trying to relight it anyway as the radar altimeter fluctuated wildly with each new rise and fall in the canyons and mountains in the area. They were running on fumes, a fuel leak having been missed, and even now hemorrhaging the precious fluid. The MASTER CAUTION light was lit like a flare, and no amount of pressing it would make it go away.

A blocky brick of steel, the Pelican was far from aerodynamic, and with their engines slowly spooling down as the fuel feed no longer drew from the tanks, they were only capable of gliding, and Morgan fought the stick the whole way down. The bird drifted and fell, dense air clawing at its wings as gravity and air resistance worked together to drag it and the Spartans inside of it down to the ground.

An impact in the rear. They had hit something, and at the next drop, Morgan grunted loudly, jerking the stick to the left and pulling back to send them into a canyon. The next wall clipped their right wing, shearing off a foot and a half of material. They weren't going anywhere else except for down as the Pelican dipped to the right, despite her constant stick and rudder inputs. Hydraulic pressure was falling, and Morgan was already worried the stick would break if they didn't crash first. She could feel it bending in her grip even now.

Ahead, the ground came up to meet them, filled with rocks and another smaller chasm. It was barely big enough to fit the Pelican in, and with the Pelican slowly nosing forward despite pulling as hard on the stick as she could, she knew it was going to be a hard landing. "Brace!"

She called out to the Chief just before they went in, the Pelican hitting hard and sliding through the dense snowbank, Morgan's restraints snapping and throwing her into the windscreen, a barely concealed yell as her armor's gel layer pressurized and stiffened. Behind her, the Chief had hit his copilot's console and cartwheeled until he hit the roof of the cockpit, leaving a massive crack in the glass before falling straight down with a heavy thud.

Stuck in the space between the windscreen and the pilot's console, Morgan groaned, the sound of alarms blaring in her ears and the white noise feeling of numbed pain in her chest. Her weapons were gone, having been detached from her armor in the crash, and she forced herself to crawl out of the space she had been thrown into.

It didn't feel good at all to move, and she fought the urge to just lie there and let herself give up. When she reached the edge, she fell into the floor, the impact much easier to ignore than a crash. Another groan, and she forced herself to her feet, stretching her arms and legs to make sure she hadn't broken anything that would slow her down.

"Chief?" She called out.

" _We're fine,"_ Cortana replied, the Chief getting to his feet, his helmet shaking as he tried to stave off the effects of the crash. He had been dazed, his impact no less staggering but he was in better physical shape than the Commander was.

"Green, ma'am."

"Good. We need to get moving. Sooner we get done, sooner we go home." That was all that was driving her at this point. Her shotgun was on the floor, scuffed but otherwise fine. Her rifle was mostly in one piece, but the stock had split and the bolt wasn't set properly. It was useless at this point, but her pistol was across the cockpit, near the bulkhead separating them from the bay. The Chief's weapons were in a similar state, but all still good enough to work.

Frowning, she grabbed the shotgun and pistol, sliding the shotgun on her back and moving to the bulkhead before stepping into the bay. The rear door had snapped open, letting snow and freezing air inside. Their supplies had been scattered across the bay, quite a bit being thrown out into the snowbank they had dug a trench through in their descent.

With a sigh, she stepped out and looked for a weapon to replace her rifle, settling on a stray battle rifle. Emptying her magazine pouches of the assault rifle's ammunition, she replaced it with a few to feed into the battle rifle. Bigger, better rounds, but never enough to last her when she really needed them. A hard trade off.

The Chief seemed to have a similar mindset, trading his rifle and shotgun out for another battle rifle and refilling his ammunition stores. Finally, the pistol was abandoned in favor of a pair of SMGs that he strapped to his thighs as if they belonged there.

With their visors meeting, she nodded and led the way out, battle rifle up and at the ready, and when it was clear, she lowered it and took in their surroundings. The sound of sparking internals in the Pelican was swallowed up by the snow falling endlessly, and she wondered if they would be met with pure silence when they left the mortally wounded Pelican behind.

There was no reason to stick around anymore, and the Chief seemed to think they should move, turning around with his weapon up and skirting past the Pelican. Morgan followed, her armor's diagnostics chiming as they finished their scan. Nothing was wrong with it, per se, but there was with her. One of her ribs had suffered another crack somewhere between the fighting on High Charity and the crash, and she bit at her cheek. As long as it held, she'd be fine. The armor's gel layer puffing up would stabilize it as much as it could with the addition of the biofoam, but so many injuries would limit her endurance. If they got this done in the next hour or two at most, she'd be fine, but if they got caught out and stuck in an extended deployment, well… it wouldn't be pretty for her.

Pushing it, and the slowly throbbing pain in her side, into a box in her mind, she soldiered on. The chasm around them swallowed them up until the walls hid away the black pillar of smoke pouring out of the Pelican they had left behind. Another few minutes of walking and a distant explosion sounded, echoing off of the walls several times before it went quiet again, the snow muting almost all sound other than her breathing inside of the enclosed helmet.

They had gotten out of the Pelican just in time, she guessed.

" _Something just entered the ring's atmosphere, can't be anything good."_ Cortana's voice sounded worried over the comm, and she was probably right. They kept moving, as fast as they could in shin deep snow and both run nearly ragged after near constant, hectic fighting. Even Spartans could be worn out under the right conditions.

Turning around a curve in the rock wall, she saw their objective rising up in front of them. An angular, delta shaped building built into the far wall of widened canyon rose out of the snow and into the bare white sky. Several levels led the way up to a massive bulkhead door that was just barely visible.

"Is that the control center?"

" _It is. It looks just like the first one did."_

 _"_ Understood. Let's pick up the pace, get in there before-"

A pressure in her mind grew, too quick to think of what it was, and then she nearly felt herself brought to her knees by the pain. It was as if something was squeezing her skull between two massive hands, and forced a scream back down as the voice in her head sounded in all of its unwanted glory.

" _YOU THOUGHT ME DEFEATED?"_

A massive hand grabbed at her, pulling her back to her feet. Looking up at the owner of the hand, she saw the Chief, struggling just as hard against the mental onslaught.

" _Flood dispersal pods! You need to get to the top of the control center or they'll overwhelm you!"_

Morgan didn't need to be told twice, and neither did the Chief. They both started moving against the disorientation, weapons up as they fought against the snow, exhaustion, this new attack on their minds, and time. Time was something they never seemed to have enough of. Now, with the Gravemind once again aware of their plans, she saw his putrid army starting to fill the sky, pods touching down and exploding, unleashing Flood forms and staining the pure white snow a sickly gray-green.

Her shotgun in hand, she led the way, with the Chief unloading on them at range with his battle rifle. Hot brass soared through the air, steam wafting off of smoking cartridges before they disappeared into the blanket of white coating the ground. With each pull of the trigger, another Flood form dropped, the boom of the rifle echoing off of the canyon walls. They got closer and closer, with even the Master Chief being unable to keep them at range for long. There were too many, and it was going to be a fight all the way up the side.

Her shotgun joined the fray before too long, and the first combat form was ripped apart by the hail of buckshot. _Chick-chack_. Another one met their end, scattered as the cone of pellets tore through rotten bone and muscle, liquified organs doing little to protect the body itself. _Chick-chack_. Two forms caught another blast, close enough that the fireball expanding out of the barrel reached the combat form and burned away part of its skin before it, too, fell to the ground, limp forever.

She reloaded every chance she got, never wanting to let up as the Flood continued to swarm in, and for a time, it looked like they would have to start backing up. Two tank forms rose from a pair of pods that came down far too close for comfort, and Morgan pulled the trigger again. Her shotgun clicked, empty, and she tossed it, whipping her shotgun to the ground and pulling her rifle over her shoulder. It wouldn't stop them nearly as easily, but it was better than nothing.

With the battle rifle coming up and her finger magnetized to the trigger, she was ready to pull and start slinging more lead, but something else stole her target from her. A ruby red beam of energy pierced the tank form, igniting the rotten skin and dropping it to the ground without a chance of it getting back up. Smoke rose from the corpse and the edges of the hole that had been made glowed red hot.

Her rifle shifted to the other target, firing as fast as it could, when she looked for their savior. She spotted him just as the voice came over their comms channel.

" _Keep moving! I'll cover you!"_ Sergeant Major Avery Johnson had arrived in the nick of time, and she could see the Spartan laser hefted on his shoulder, looking far too large for his form, but he hefted it as if he had been made for it. It started to charge for another shot, a thin red targeting beam ready to guide the shot in. Another bright beam pierced through the second tank form, sending it the way of its fallen brethren. " _Now!_ "

She reloaded he rifle and the Master Chief moved past her in a combat glide, scooping the shotgun up and tossing it back for her to catch by the stock and start reloading the tube that ran under the barrel, filling it with shells before she moved to catch up.

The motion tracker was filled with red dots, slowly lighting up with yellows here and there as defensive Sentinels floated into the area and started firing on the Flood in an attempt to contain their outbreak before they could get to the control room. It didn't do too much, but it did enough to clear the swarm out for the two Spartans to move and breathe a little bit easier.

The first level was filled with the parasite, and out of sight of Johnson's overwatch, but so long as another tank form didn't come, it wouldn't be needed. The area was narrow, more compact, and easier to stem the tide of puppeted corpses.

Morgan's breathing echoed in her head, growing more ragged by the minute as her side continued to ache. She could feel her rib shifting every so often, despite the biofoam, but there was nothing she could do without a medic, not that it had helped her all that much in the first place. Hectic fighting like this only meant it would be a matter of time before she was hit hard enough to undo all the medical work anyway.

More monsters from her deepest nightmares continued to fill the air with their screeches, loud enough to make even the stars quiver under their onslaught. Her instincts, her years of combat, her very nature all told her to fight, and she did. She raged against the dying of the light, in the twilight hours of Humanity's greatest struggle against not only an alien genocide, but against the fetid ocean of undead that arose as the darkest sin of the Forerunners. Her body was on autopilot, adrenaline flooding every vein and artery almost as much as the oxygen that her lungs clawed at, and she was left to almost watch herself fight, as if watching it through somebody else's eyes.

She was reduced to that same little girl that she had been all those years ago, standing amid the glasslands that had been made of Sapphire Point, the remnants of the fallout bunker she was in crumbling around her. But now, instead of rain and smoke, the skeletal starscrapers, and the cries of the wounded, there was only the promise of death at the hands of something that would rip away not only her life, but her very essence.

They would take Cortana back, would steal and take everything that she possessed. They would kill the Chief after they tore apart his mind and his soul, too strong even for him to fight against if he was infected. Finally, they would kill her, they would take away her memories, of parents that were nothing more than faint silhouettes in the back of her mind as she dreamed at night, and even worse, would take away Noble. She wouldn't lose them again. The Covenant had taken their bodies from her, had taken their lives. If she let the Flood have their way with her, decided that there had been enough fighting and she would stop finally, they would take her memories of Noble, take away Jorge and Emile's tags, steal all that she held dear anymore.

She had lost her family once, twice, never again.

An animal mind and an unbridled rage realized that more than just Humanity was at stake. A yell, one that threatened to damage her throat, ripped loose inside of her helmet, transmitting over the comms link and startling both the Chief and Cortana.

Morgan watched through eyes filled with red hate, listening to the calls from Cortana and the Chief, to Johnson's questions of what had happened, but she couldn't respond, her shotgun firing almost as if it had been made a slamfire weapon, the entire tube being fed through the chamber with the barrel shifting from target to target like it was being attracted by some unknown force.

The lethality of a Spartan had been made mythical throughout the war. Soldiers trained to be the ultimate killing machines and given equipment to make them godlike with nothing to lose and everything to protect. They were Aries reborn, and with a lifetime of anger and bitterness sealed inside of Morgan, even the Master Chief was forced to try and keep up as her shotgun was discarded, her pistol and a knife being ripped from her waist. Every shot was on target, and every swipe of her blade met the infection form hidden deep inside of rotten chest cavities.

Deep inside, she heard the glassing beams, plasma fire, the crackle and pop of UNSC Marines fighting until they were slowly snuffed out, before the bunker had sealed her away, clutched tightly in an older woman's arms, one whose name she had never learned. A dull ache in her chest made her vision pulse, and nearly brought her down, but she kept going. Her helmet showed a medical alert. Her rib had shifted enough and rebroken. Pressurizing her armor stabilized it, but not nearly enough for prolonged combat. Already, it was hard to breathe, and with the sudden change, it felt like the Chieftain had her again, ready to crush her until blackness was all she knew.

Then the way to the ramp up to the next level was showing through the line of corpses, and she went for it. Her heartbeat thundered loudly in her ears, the sound of blood rushing through them nearly blotting out the voice that called for her.

" _Commander!"_ The Chief was trying to get her attention, but it didn't stop her. She kept moving, weapons up, nearly plowing into a combat form at the top of the ramp. The whip like arm was already pulled back, ready to whip forward and take her off her feet. Not even the adrenaline infused world of Spartan Time would be fast enough to react for her. The pistol in her hand was coming up, her knife moving to try and cut the tentacle when it came forward.

" _Morgan!"_ Cortana's voice, her name, it broke through the haze, and her breath caught as she realized what she had done. Overextending was deadly for a Spartan. Kurt had drilled that into every single recruit in the company. But that didn't stop the tentacle from starting its deadly assault on her, and she waited for the pain that came with it.

But it never came. A hail of bullets covered it from behind, punching through the rotten core and bouncing off of Morgan's shields after their energy had been expended. The Flood form had met its match though, the shoulder being shorn off by the amount of fire that went in and followed a diagonal path down to the opposite hip. Falling at her feet, Morgan looked up, seeing Johnson standing across the third level, brandishing an SMG while his Spartan laser dangled on a sling across his back.

His face looked flushed, and he was breathing in quick puffs that steamed and dissipated in the cold air. Immediately, he jogged for the door, his fist beating against it in a futile attempt to get the attention of the Monitor. "Spark! Open the damn door already!"

The Chief passed by her, shotgun held by the pump as he held it out towards her. She took it and followed him to the door, both wordlessly taking positions on either side of the Sergeant Major, ready to stop anything that came up the two ramps that came from the second level. Gunfire continued to fill the air, intermingling with plasma fire and the firing of Sentinel beams. The filters blocked it all out for the two, but Johnson wrinkled his nose, irritated at the smell of burning and rotten flesh, something far from pleasant to the old man.

With his helmet speakers off, the Chief called for his AI companion, still glaring down the sights of his SMGs. "What happened back there?"

The AI's response was slow, even as Sentinels floated out of holes in the wall and joined their brethren below in enacting their containment protocols. _"Unknown, her vitals are through the roof. Increased heart rate, fight or flight response is engaged, she's exhibiting the same type of stress levels as… a caged animal. Her rib is broken, and one of her lungs could collapse at any minute. If she keeps fighting like this, she's going to die, Chief."_

The Master Chief frowned under his olive drab helmet, doing his best to cover the rabid Spartan in gore stained blue armor. "If only we were so lucky."

" _What do you mean?"_

Cortana didn't get an answer from the older Spartan. _Typical_.

A heavy thunk behind them, and the door started to slide open slowly, barely big enough for them to fit through. Johnson went first, slipping out of the cold with his weapon up and leading the way. Morgan followed closely, and the Chief finished off their little train, the door closing behind them just as it had opened. Now, they were safe, for the time being, but it was still freezing inside, much to Johnson's chagrin.

Cortana's voice chimed in their ears, sounding worried. " _More dispersal pods just hit the atmosphere, and they'll be making ringfall any minute. The doors broke my connection with the_ Dawn _'s datalink, so we're blind until we get back out, but I know it's gonna be hot."_

Morgan frowned behind her helmet, yet another snag hitting their plan. They'd be able to set the ring off, but with each passing second, their odds of getting off of the ring alive, or even at all, dropped. "As long as we can light the place, we'll have done our job."

Johnson looked back over his shoulder at her, and through the swollen portions of his face where he had been beaten at the hands of the Brutes, she could see concern on his face. "That doesn't mean we have to die here."

"No, it doesn't, but if I finish that, I can rest easy."

Her voice sounded like she was close to wheezing, as if fighting for air. Johnson grunted, turning away from her. He didn't like not being able to see through that golden visor, but it didn't matter. "You can rest easy when we get back to Earth, Commander."

"Maybe."

Johnson left it at that. It seemed all Spartans were as stubborn as mules, and with the control center just around the corner, there was no more point in arguing with her.

A port in the wall opened, the Monitor floating out, his cheery humming filling the air and putting yet another damper on the moods of the three Humans and their AI companion. "Splendid! You've all made it!"

Johnson ignored the little blue ball, moving towards the control room. A large bulkhead shifted open, revealing the glass bridge that led up to a control panel and the holographic representation of the ring, several sections showing red and orange in contrast with the teal colors that showed just how unfinished the ring was.

The roar of the Flood sounded behind them, and Morgan felt her blood run cold again, until another bulkhead sealed it away. Turning on it, she kept her weapon up, ready to fight them off if they managed to get through, however unlikely it may be.

To her side, the Chief pulled Cortana from his helmet, and she looked over. Johnson already had his hand out. "I'm not gonna lose her too," he said, and wordlessly, the Chief tossed Cortana's chip to him, which the old Sergeant caught and turned for the control panel.

As he got further away, his voice lowered in volume, but Morgan's helmet and enhanced hearing heard every word of the conversation, with most of it carrying over Johnson's ear mounted comm link.

Spark hovered around him, as if surveying him. "Wonderful news, Reclaimer, this installation is almost complete!"

Johnson's sarcasm bled through thickly. "Terrific."

"Yes… it is." A beat, an uneasy silence between the two, and the Monitor went on. "I have run my simulations. No promises, but this ring should be ready to fire in just a few more days!"

The clatter of something dropping, and she looked over to see Johnson dropping the Spartan laser to the ground, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably. "We don't _have_ a few more days."

"But a premature firing will destroy the Ark!" Morgan felt the hairs on the back of her neck stick up, and turned away from her bulkhead to move closer to the threshold of the door, stepping through and moving towards the Chief. Their visors met, and he shook his head, gesturing back towards the still open bulkhead. She frowned, but continued to watch it, glancing back at Johnson every few moments.

"Deal with it," Johnson spoke back, as if irritated and dealing with a petulant child.

"You'll destroy this installation..." Morgan turned her head one more time, only to see the Monitor glowing red, and before she could comprehend what had happened, a laser had fired from the Monitor's central eye, hitting Johnson in the chest and drawing an agonizing scream from the older man.

The Chief had seen it too, and they both began to run for the fallen trooper as fast as they could, with Morgan ignoring the dull throb in her chest. Even now, the Monitor was ranting, angered by their apparent disinterest in keeping his replacement installation together, and the orb turned on them.

Another laser fired from his eye, hitting Morgan in the center of her chest plate and taking her off her feet. It was like running into a brick wall, and her shields drained completely, a warning tone in her helmet blaring loudly. Her breath was gone, and she gasped and wheezed to try and get it back. Scorch marks covered her chest plate and she could feel the heat bleeding through, her skin blistering even under the heavy armor and tech suit.

Another cry came from the Chief as he met the same response, and Morgan rolled onto her side, trying to prop herself up as the Chief rose to his feet again.

"I see now that helping you was wrong!" The Chief, stumbling forward, was stopped and brought to his knees by another burst of fire from the Monitor. "You are the child of my makers, inheritor of all they left behind… You _are_ Forerunner." For a moment, he returned to the blue color, and Morgan thought that maybe he was done trying to kill them, but she was wrong. "But this ring..." His color shifted back to red, and he floated closer to the Chief, " _..._ is _mine_."

The Chief's armor was smoking heavily, and Morgan struggled to stand until her shields blared another warning, charging up slowly. Finally on her feet again, she stumbled forward, until a cough traveled up her throat and a splatter of blood hit the inside of her visor. Closing her eyes for a moment, she fought off the dizziness that suddenly came over her.

The Monitor continued to float closer as the Chief got to his feet once more, visibly struggling as much as Morgan was, until he was pushed back by an invisible force field, his boots shrieking as they slid across the floor despite his heavy weight. Morgan was taken back off her feet as the force field hit her as well, and she was forced back down onto her back as her vision flashed white with pain.

With the Monitor bearing down on the two Spartans, being pushed to the limit, it seemed like they had been lost. "This ring was entrusted to me, and I will not see you destroy it again, Reclaimer."

"Not… for long." A struggling voice came over the comm, and Morgan could just barely make out the thin red laser painting the Monitor, until it solidified to a thick red beam that sent the Monitor careening over the edge.

Following it back to where it came from, she saw Johnson propped up on his elbow with the Spartan laser in hand. Putting it back on the ground, he slid it towards them, with the Chief scrambling forward to grab it before the Monitor could return. Morgan crawled forward, eyes on Johnson, who had fallen back to the ground and remained unmoving.

A battle broke out between Spark and the Chief, with more bursts of fire from the Monitor's beam and the Spartan laser exchanging every few moments. Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears, almost deafening, until she finally got to Johnson and grabbed his shoulder, turning him onto his back.

Brown eyes looked up at her, and the Sergeant looked like he was going to say something, when he was racked by a rattling cough. His chest armor had been destroyed, melted by the intense heat of the Monitor's beam. There was no doubt that it had fused with the uniform jacket and the skin beneath it, but it had done its job.

Morgan could feel her stomach sinking into a pit even as an explosion filled the room, and she tried her best to cover him with her body as shrapnel pinged off of the floor, screaming into the darkness after it ricocheted off of the bridge and her shields. A heavy thunk, and footsteps followed close behind, the Master Chief closing the gap with armor still smoking heavily and electricity arcing across it, his shields recharging finally.

Kneeling down beside Morgan, their visors met, before looking down at Johnson again. She spoke for both of them when she said what seemed impossible. "We're getting you out of here, Johnson."

His voice was barely above a whisper, and blood was pooling in his lungs and throat from the damage he had taken. "No- No, you're not." Breathing in as much as he could, they could hear the liquid trying to obstruct it, and he raised a hand up to the two Spartans. Morgan took it without a second thought, feeling what was in it. "Don't let her go… Don't _ever_ let her go." Morgan held his hand within her own, feeling the grip grow weaker with each passing second, and Johnson spasmed beneath her, another onslaught of pain racking his body. "Send me out… with a bang..." His last request complete, the two Spartans listened as his lungs emptied, and Sergeant Major Avery Johnson finally took his long awaited rest.

Neither said a word to each other, and Morgan could feel her heart wrenching as another one of her friends was taken by that long, dark night. She felt numb, and breathed in deeply before she let it out.

Holding her hand out to the Chief, she motioned for him to help her up, releasing Johnson's hand and letting it fall to the floor. Grabbing it, the Chief pulled her up, holding her arm around his shoulder and walking her to the control console. She held the data chip out when they arrived, and Cortana floated out of it, looking back up at the two with an expression of sorrow on her digital face. "Chief, Morgan… I'm _so_ sorry..."

Neither responded, and after a moment, Cortana made a gesture. "It's done," she said, before disappearing into her chip once again. The Chief reached out, and Morgan placed the chip in his palm before he reinserted it into his helmet.

In front of them, a massive light shot from the interior of the ring's core, and the control room began to shake wildly, with pieces falling from above as they were shaken loose and dropped. With another shared glance, the two Spartans began to turn and run, Morgan fighting against her body's complaints as hard as she could. A large beam came down on the bridge, hitting it and making it shift, nearly dumping them over the edge.

They made it back to the entryway and turned the corner, weapons back in hand as their job was still in unfinished. They had to fight their way out now, and with the Monitor no longer controlling the Sentinel forces, it was likely they would be seen as enemy forces just as much as the Flood.

The bulkhead split apart, and they stepped through, the sound of gunfire returning in full force. Several Flood forms were firing on Sentinels, only to see fresh meat had reappeared. They were met with gunfire from the Spartans and cut down quickly, as well as the Sentinels that turned on them after the Flood was neutralized.

It was just one more bump in the road for them. They were alone on a ring filled with hostile entities and their only way out alive was several miles away while the ring itself was falling apart. The Chief led the way, his SMGs up and ready to burp more fire at whatever reared its ugly head. Returning to the entry they had used to get in, they saw it was easing open, and the Flood were pouring in already. The twin submachine guns fired, bullet hoses spraying down the horde and painting the two Spartans in their muzzle flash.

Morgan's shotgun was up and barked in its own way, spraying cones of deadly buckshot out and eviscerating anything that escaped the SMG's lethal chatter. The entryway emptied out quickly as the Flood was thinned to nothing for the time, and they moved as quick as they could outside, back into the cold. Looking left and right, the ramps were covered in burned corpses and pieces of Sentinels brought down during their absence.

" _Over there, where Johnson came from!"_ Cortana pointed out that a bank of snow had come down, packing together and leading up to the cliffside that Johnson had traveled across on his way in. The Chief went for it, with no other options, and Morgan followed, covering their back and sweeping the area with her scattergun.

More Flood came for them, and they were put down with little trouble, but the Sentinels floating overhead proved to be a bigger problem. They weren't as powerful as Spark had been, and their weaponry was weaker, but it still posed a significant hazard. Near misses did more than plasma ever had, and Morgan grit her teeth as a glancing hit melted part of her shoulder armor and gave her what felt like a nasty sunburn. That said little about her shields, dropping to a quarter full almost immediately and shrieking in her ear.

Bullets sparked against the metallic casing and the Sentinel was brought down, smoking heavily, before they pressed on and into a corridor that led to the other side. The interior had already been filled with heavy fighting, scorch marks, bullet impacts, and debris both organic and otherwise were scattered across the walls and floor. Pushing on, the Chief stepped out into the entrance to another room before he quickly ducked back. Morgan saw why a moment later, as a rocket fired from what was likely a UNSC rocket launcher shrieked past and hit the back wall, exploding harmlessly. With a grunt, the Chief put his SMG around the corner and blind fired it until the ammunition ran dry. No more rockets came through, and satisfied, he replaced the magazine before trying to step back out again.

More Flood streamed inside as Sentinels continued to exit their ingress ports, and with a two way firefight, the Spartans didn't interfere until there were only a few survivors left that they put down with little retaliation. It continued like that for a time, until they made it out the other side, a Warthog waiting in the snow.

" _There it is! Johnson's Warthog! If we move quick enough, we can get to the_ Dawn _before this ring tears itself apart!"_ Cortana was taking the words right out of Morgan's mouth, and they moved as quick as they could to get in. Jumping into the driver's seat, Morgan started the engine, and it purred loudly before it roared. Feeling the Warthog bounce against its suspension as the Chief took the gun, she stepped on the gas, and it fishtailed for a bit before it rocketed off and down the hill, towards where a field of artificial plates were arranged in a miles-long lattice that seemed to make up the ring's structure.

"Cortana, can you get me a navigational beacon?"

" _Of course, it should be on your HUD now, we're still a few miles out."_

"What about remote interaction with the ship?"

" _Negative, Commander. I'll need a hard interface with it before anything can be done_."

She cursed under her breath as the Hog bounced when it hit the lattice structures, and already things were going to hell in a hand basket. Explosions rippled across the chasms on either side of them, one erupting beneath one of the square partitions and sending it through the air, nearly engulfing the Warthog and leaving the two Humans to feel the heat even through their armor.

Morgan kept the wheel straight and her foot on the gas, pushing for every bit of power she could get. A roundabout structure was just ahead, one that would force them to slow down and take slow lest they be flipped or wreck. More explosions went off and forced her to start dodging the materials or the gaps they left behind.

Hitting the harder, more filled structure, Morgan pulled the handbrake and the Warthog started to flail, the rear end nearly overtaking the front as it drifted around the corner. Several Flood infection forms came skittering across the terrain, and despite the Warthog's weight, it popped very few of them. Instead, it seemed to almost glide across the top, and she disengaged the handbrake to prevent being carried away by it all.

Her heart was thundering in her ears, the Warthog rumbling beneath her and the feeling of an earthquake could be felt even through the heavy frame of the vehicle. The HUD marker said they were getting closer at a high rate of speed, but it felt like they weren't moving at all. More girders fell from attachment points in the canyon surrounding them, smashing into the lattice and causing ripple effects that took out more than just those pieces that were hit. The Warthog started to slide as the lattice tilted, and Morgan fought it the whole way, struggling to keep it from going too far down.

Eventually, they made it to another level portion, and the Warthog returned to far easier driving. "Chief? You might wanna hang on," she called out, glancing over her shoulder to make sure he hadn't fallen off at any point.

He was still up there, stoic in the late day sun and the light of the planetoid at the Ark's core. Confident he wouldn't fall off, she focused on their route. A tunnel was their only way forward, moving through a massive complex that had been built into the cliffside. Several pieces fell away from the ground, save for one that would send them through the air.

Pushing the accelerator into the floor, Morgan braced herself for the jump and the inevitable impact, the Hog taking flight and soaring through the air before it lost enough forward momentum to come crashing down, and she felt it in her chest, swallowing a yell of agony that she felt through every inch of her body.

Pressurizing the suit as much as she could to stabilize the rib, it hurt, but it was better than constant shifting, even as biofoam filled as much of the area as it could around the broken rib. More jumps like that and the rib could puncture her lungs, or worse.

Entering the tunnel, the headlights were flicked on, and several more ramps were bathed in their glow. An internal groan was snuffed out as more girders fell, deforming the ramps even as the Warthog skirted underneath them just in time to not be crushed or swept over the edge and into the void below. Going up the first ramp was easy enough without having to go airborne, but when it came to coming back down, the Chief's booming voice filled her comm link.

" _Contact front!"_ The LAAG opened up on the back, prattling on as heavy slugs shot out of the three barrels and into the Flood horde that had wandered onto the tunnel's scaffolding system. Several Sentinels were trying to cleanse them, with little effect. They were the first targets, being shredded by the Spartan's barrage, and the Warthog continued to gain speed coming down the ramps, and running right through the horde.

Several of the monsters were sucked under the massive tires, disappearing and being crushed, but others were torn in half, torsos and arms smashing against the hood and the windshield, cracking it enough to start a problem.

With the area clear ahead of them, she put the Warthog on cruise control and kept one hand on the wheel. The other was brought up as she leaned forward and rammed her fist against the outer rim of the windshield. It was designed to be shatterproof, like most vehicles that used glass in windows, and it spiderwebbed heavily as she beat against it, but it started to pop from its housing until, finally, another hit jarred it loose. Grabbing it, she grunted, and threw it over the side and out of her way.

Putting her foot back on the gas, she was forced to ascend more ramps and drive around Flood forms, with girders raining down on them the whole way, as if fate had ordained that they be stopped either by killing them outright, or making it hard enough for her to drive that they wouldn't make it in time.

Another roundabout rose up in front of them when they exited the tunnel, and she was careful not to try drifting again. This time, infector forms didn't come skittering out onto the roadway, but several carrier forms waddled aimlessly, and the Chief gunned them down as quickly as he could, but that sent several dozen infectors into the air before coming down on top of them, more than one gaining purchase on the Hog and crawling across the hood and interior.

His boots mag locked to the gun bay, the Chief let go and pulled one of his SMGs up, squirting the forms on the hood and ending them as quickly as they had been birthed, but one of them got on Morgan. She wasn't fast enough to grab it, and it started crawling up her arm and onto her shoulder. When it was about to crawl over her shoulder piece, she saw it ripped away out of the corner of her eye, crushed in a large, olive drab armored hand.

Flashing a green light, she felt her heart racing faster, as if it couldn't get any worse. Not only did they have to fight against time and natural combat, but infection forms getting onto their vehicle and posing a problem like that.

Another jump off the roundabout and they were back on the lattice structures, fighting a literal uphill battle against gravity and the ring's self destruction. Sentinels, nearly a dozen of them, were on their way to deal with the Flood, when they caught sight of the Warthog and opened fire. Sentinel beams struck the area around the Warthog, some making hits and melting down portions of the hood, the fenders, and even the metal roll cage, but barely avoiding Morgan. The flash of gold behind her showed the Chief had been hit, his shields barely holding as he returned fire, hiding behind the gunshield until they got far enough away that they dropped behind the lattice and the Sentinels were left behind.

" _Charging sequence at thirty percent!"_ Cortana kept the appraised of how much time they had left, and with only a mile shaved off of the distance to the _Dawn_ , Morgan knew they were going to cut it close with the winding routes and evasions they had to take.

Explosions went off across the lattice work, leaving gaping holes in it and more obstacles for them to go around. Another roundabout waited for them ahead, on the other side of yet another large drop that Morgan was already dreading, and she braced herself as they went up and over, coming down hard on the wheels, but she stifled another scream, focusing only on driving them. Blinking away tears, she struggled to breath against the pressure on her chest, and knew that if they got out of here alive, she'd need a doctor immediately if she wanted to stay that way.

More carrier and infection forms waited for them, and the Chief didn't gun them down this time. The risk was too great to try, and Morgan simply evaded them, despite the time it would take off of their dwindling clock.

" _Fifty percent, Commander!"_

Halfway around the roundabout, pure forms started to show up, several of them opening fire as the structure began to creak and groan, shifting and sliding. The Warthog started another slide that she tried to correct against until the Tank forms started to gallop toward them. One hit from a Tank would flip the Hog at best or kill the engine at worst, and given they were barely keeping up with the ring as it was, they would never make it on foot.

The LAAG opened up again, shredding a Tank form and ripping the arm off of another. Morgan skirted past them, just barely, and ramped over the edge to return to the lattice. This time, the Hog was tilting down, and landed on a sloped portion that made the fall much easier on the wounded Spartan in the driver's seat. She could taste copper on her tongue, and wanted badly to wash it out, but she would have to grit her teeth and bear it for the time being.

Another tunnel yawned open in front of them, already in bad shape. Several sloping structures ran through it, some crushed in areas by fallen girders and others victims of premature detonations that had left them ripped and torn, edges glowing red hot where they were damaged. The Warthog plowed on, engine roaring constantly as she kept it red lined in an attempt to outrun the ring's death knells.

Flood and Sentinels continued to fight in the darkened confines of the tunnel, and while no Sentinel beams painted the Warthog this time, several grenades fired from Brute shots screamed past on either side of the Hog, some passing by close enough that she could hear the fuse whistling for just a moment.

Yanking the wheel, she ducked the vehicle into a tunnel that ran beneath one of the slopes, hoping to use it as cover from the incoming fire, easily enough to rip a wheel off or break an axle, if not kill them outright from a direct hit.

_"_ _Seventy percent!"_

Coming up and out of the underside of the slope, they saw light again, and in the distance, the blocky figure of the _Dawn_ waiting for them. They were almost there, they were going to make it!

Passing up another ramp and taking to the sky, they came down hard, drawing another scream from Morgan, even as the Hog bounced up too high and went on two wheels. Trying her hardest to not pass out from the pain or let the Hog flip, she yanked the wheel and brought them back down before turning right and following another upwards slope. They were nearly there, she couldn't pass out now, not yet.

Coming down was easier than going up, and she gunned the Hog harder, pushing for the flat expanse in front of them, but plans changed when she saw the massive structural piece coming down, ripping through the lattice work and smashing most of the area they could use to get through. Going up the left, she followed another ramp, one that led them straight towards the _Dawn_ 's beacon.

" _Ninety percent! Firing sequence initiated!"_

An arch of stone passed over the lattice, and more explosions went off, one happening just behind the Warthog, nearly taking them out as she tried to keep it under control, grunting and ignoring the sweat that dripped into her left eye. A straight shot to the ship was all that stood between them, and passing under the archway, a downward sloping ramp that ended in a jump would send them straight into the hangar bay.

" _Gun it, Morgan, jump! Right into the hangar!"_

She didn't have to be told twice, the Warthog picking up speed quickly as it went down the steep slope, and finally, up the final ramp, flying through the air as she grabbed the wheel with one hand and the roll cage with the other, hoping they made it.

The Hog started to nose down as they entered the hangar bay, and it landed hard on the tow system and the front edge of the hood, somersaulting through the air and leaving a trail of sparks. Morgan held on for dear life as she was shaken like she was inside of a snowglobe. The Chief was thrown from the gun, the heavy clang of his armor impacting on something sounding loud enough for her to hear. Another roll and she was thrown loose too, slamming into the wall and bouncing off as the Warthog slid across the bay on its roof, finally coming to a stop.

Black rimmed the edge of her vision, her armor reporting internal bleeding in her chest. Staggering to her hands and knees, she looked over to try and find the Chief. He had hit a support pillar and passed around it, cartwheeling to a stop not far from her. He tried to rise as well, making it into a kneeling position. The two locked eyes, and he nodded to her, and despite the pain she was in, she nodded back. Suddenly, the ship shifted to the right, and a screech went up as something started sliding. Morgan looked up to see a Scorpion had broken loose from its restraints, and was already sliding across the bay, right at her. Cursing in her mind was on repeat as she forced herself up and limped towards a safe spot, hoping against hope that she wouldn't be crushed so close to the end.

But then the screeching stopped, accompanied by a heavy impact. She had made it into a small alcove next to one of the hangar doors leading into the rest of the ship. More containers had followed the tank down, and she forced her way out of them to get eyes on her companion. He was already running for the central console in the bay that allowed manual activation of the loading elevators and an AI interface port. Taking Cortana's chip from his helmet, he shoved her inside, and she popped up immediately. " _Hang on! Commander, get to the bridge!"_

The ship's engines flared to life, sounding like a constant barrage of thunder as they went to maximum thrust. The ship started to move, angling upwards and climbing towards the portal's entrance. Boxes and containers started to break loose as the _Dawn_ went nearly vertical, the Chief hanging on to the AI console and Morgan struggling to hold on

Slamming the command to force the door open, she pulled herself over the bulkhead and into the corridor. The artificial gravity kicked in as the door shut behind her, and she ran for the nearest elevator, taking it up to the bridge and scrambling for the commander's chair. Tossing herself into it and strapping herself in before she covered herself with crash webbing, she relaxed ever so slightly, feeling the exhaustion take hold of her as her body finally stopped, run ragged and half dead.

" _Chief!"_

Cortana's voice snapped her out of whatever sensation of rest she had attained, and quickly, she opened up the helmet cam feed from the Chief. He had been thrown to the back of the hangar, and even now, he was climbing back up to Cortana, digging his armored fingers into the deck with every thrust of his hands, and when he finally made it, the view Morgan saw on her face was pained.

Grabbing the chip from the console, Cortana was pulled out of the system, leaving it on a course with the portal. Sliding around the console, the Chief leaned back against it, and while she could only see the hangar bay wall, she could still hear them both.

" _If we don't make it..."_

Cortana's worry was snuffed out by the Chief's deep voice, always confident. " _We'll make it."_

" _It's been an honor serving with you John, Morgan._ "

White light engulfed the hangar bay, and the Chief's helmet camera had whited out, the bridge being covered in the same blinding light as Halo either detonated or fired before the _Dawn_ dove into the portal.

Morgan's vision went black as the portal started to shake the _Dawn_ in the same manner it had during its first pass through the portal, although without the mass of the _Shadow of Intent_ acting as a buffer this time, Morgan could feel herself being thrown around in her seat, one of the straps snapping and causing her vision to fade even further. She couldn't see the helmet camera anymore, or much of anything, and with constant shaking agitating her chest with every shake, she finally succumbed to the agony and blacked out.

* * *

Morgan awoke sometime later, with little idea of how long she had been knocked out. Blood was pooling on the inside of her helmet, covering her chin and discoloring the bottom portion of the visor. Shaking her head to clear some of the dizziness, the world stayed somewhat blurry. Coughing, more blood spattered against the interior.

"Chi-" Another cough. "Chief, Cortana, do you read me?" Her voice was hoarse, and sounded like Johnson's had. Blood had gotten into her lungs, and she felt light headed. She had lost too much, either managing to get out of her body or pooling in her chest cavity somewhere. Warnings across the top of her HUD were telling her that things had gone wrong, too many things. She was hemorrhaging blood like a stuck pig, another rib had broken, and her right lung had been punctured.

With a wheezing intake of air, she tried again. "Sierra 117, please respond." Nothing. Something had happened to them. They were unconscious, that was it, or his armor had been too damaged for Cortana to respond in the explosion. An EMP, maybe. She finally noticed the bridge was looking at something a deep, dark blue. It was the ocean. They had crash landed. It had to have been an EMP for them to crash land, a powerful one at that.

A crash behind her, and a call out. "Commander?" Footsteps, and finally a form appeared in front of her, a UNSC Marine without armor, uniform wet and a welding mask on his face. She looked up, and visibly, she could see him filled with relief. "We thought you were gone, ma'am. Medic! Get a corpsman in here!"

Morgan's speakers came to life, another rattling wheeze as she struggled to ask him what was on her mind more than anything. "What happened? Where's- where's the Chief?"

He looked back at her, confused. "Ma'am?"

"The Chief, and Cortana. They we-were in the hangar bay." Every word out of her mouth felt like it was going through a muzzle, and it took everything she had to get the words out.

The Marine looked back over her shoulder, likely at an incoming medic, before looking back to her. "The hangar is gone, ma'am. All we recovered was the front quarter and the bridge. The entire back half of the ship is… gone."

No. This wasn't happening. They had been through everything, had gotten to the finish line, had gotten out of harm's way finally. And what happened? She was the sole survivor again. She refused to believe it. Her hand came up, grasping at the Marine weakly, until she finally grabbed a hold of his fatigues. "Che-check again."

Despite her weakened state, she was manhandling him easily, pulling him closer. "Ma'am, we're searching now, but if they were in the hangar, they're-"

" _Check again!"_ She nearly screamed it, and immediately went into a coughing fit, more blood spattering against her visor as she went through the helmet's systems. Getting to the squad roster, she saw it.

Spartan 117 read in bold letters on her HUD, showing nothing but the last vital signs that had been recorded. There was no transponder on his armor, not in range, and if he wasn't in range, then he was gone, just as the Marine had said.

She let go of the Marine, and her arm dropped limply into her lap, only held in the seat by the crash webbing. Her eyes began to burn, and tears started to fall out of them, trailing down her face and onto her chin. More footsteps rang in the bridge, several, but she didn't pay them any mind. Not when they were in front of her, not when several Marines and a pair of Elites extracted her from the crash webbing gently and got her onto a purple colored slab that was hovering in the air.

Her helmet was taken off, the blood running out and revealing a pale face to the Marines and Elites alike, covered in scars and bruises, the streaks of tears down a dirty face, and eyes that may as well have been empty. Quickly, the Marines hooked her up to the medical instruments on it, feeding IV drips and coagulants to her through the ports in her armor.

But none of it mattered to her. The Chief was gone. Cortana was gone. Yet she was still here. Still alive. What had she done to be stuck like this again? Why couldn't she have been the one to stay behind and let the Chief go on ahead. She was tired, more than she could ever remember being, and it didn't matter. She didn't have the strength to fight against the inevitable anymore. There was no air left in her lungs to scream at whatever God had punished her like this, to rail against the destiny that had been set in stone the instant she was conceived. Now, she was alone again, and it hit her like a sack of hammers.

Sunlight spilled across her face, but she didn't notice it. Her body was cold, so cold. The armor should have been keeping her warm, climate control systems must have been malfunctioning. Her teeth started to chatter without her realizing it, and one of the Marines looked down as a tablet in his hand beeped angrily. His mouth moved, but nothing came out of it. Looking at him, her green eyes asked questions that she no longer had the words for.

They seemed to pick up the pace, and she watched him, wondering why he seemed so animated all of a sudden. The interior of a Pelican's bay showed up, and several more Marines were waiting on board. A man in UNSC Navy fatigues rushed forward, immediately taking the tablet from the Marine and glancing over it, his skin paling even in the low light before the interior lights lit up.

Licking her lips, it did nothing to moisten them, no matter how hard she tried. Her mouth was dry too, but she still fought against it. "Doc-Doctor. I think my armor malfunctioned."

She didn't hear what he said, but he looked terrified for a moment. She realized she didn't hear anything at all, not even the sound of blood rushing through her ears, or the sound of her heartbeat. It was pure nothingness, and black started to tinge the rim of her vision, until once again, she blacked out.

* * *

Several times, her vision came back to her, each time with a different entourage of people and a different scene. First it was the Pelican's bay, then the sky, then the interior of a building, and finally, the stark white interior of what was likely a hospital. She had no way of telling how long it had been. Her armor was missing, though, and she could feel the restrictiveness of adhesive bandages and gauze on her body. Several needles were pricked through her skin, and the starchy feeling of a medical gown covered her.

Everything felt slow, sluggish, and her mouth was just as dry as ever. The sound of a cardiac monitor could be heard, and she turned as much as she could to look at it. It showed a heart rate, her heart rate, normal. A pair of IV stands stood waiting, one filled with the red color of blood, and the other, she had no idea. She was likely filled with pain killers, enough to put down an elephant, but she was alive.

Glancing down, she moved one hand up to pull the blanket up, revealing a hospital gown and the top of a line of bandages. An angry red color could be seen peeking out of the top, but whatever was underneath the bandages, she had no idea. Several blisters were healing as well.

Taking a deep breath, she felt a hint of pain make it through, and stopped, putting her head back down on the pillow and taking her time to rest. The sound of the heart rate monitor was all she knew for a time. She laid there for what seemed like hours, getting lost in the constant sound that beeped so rhythmically, until it was finally broken by a door opening.

She didn't lift her head or try to look around, waiting to see what happened. Eventually, whoever it was walked over to her, a doctor, clad in the white lab coat and all, but the eagle insignia on his collar made it clear he was a naval Captain. "Commander? I'm the _Aegis Fate_ 's surgeon. How are you feeling?"

Her green eyes shifted to look up at him. "Like I was hit by a truck."

Despite the situation, a hint of a smile made it onto the man's face. "I'm not surprised. We nearly lost you for good. Several times on the way here you flatlined, even almost bled out. You had… quite the list of injuries."

"Yeah, I- I bet." Her voice was hoarse. She licked her lips again. "Water."

"Just a second, Commander. I'll get you some." He started to turn, but a nurse had already shuffled into the room with some, likely already having it on hand just in case. "Here, we're gonna elevate your bed, alright?"

She didn't respond, the bed slowly elevating at the waist and leaving her until she was mostly sitting up, and she reached for the cup in his hand. Trying to take it, he didn't let go, instead letting her guide the cup to her mouth, and when she was finished, she let go and he pulled back. It felt better, having actual water again, but it was a small win against an even bigger loss.

"What happened?"

He seemed hesitant to answer, but eventually, he did. "You crash landed. The _Dawn_ was cut in half just behind the bridge. Another dozen feet back and you would have been gone."

"And my injuries?"

"Two broken ribs, multiple third degree burns, collapsed lung, Just under three liters of blood in your chest cavity, and several more of your ribs were starting to fracture. Your heart was nicked at some point by a shard of bone that must have broken off when your rib broke. We've got you on an IV for blood and morphine, and you'll have to heal for a while. Your chest was stitched up after we went in to fix everything, so we can't get you out of bed."

She sat there for a moment, taking it all in. So she had very nearly bled to death then. "How long was I out?"

"About a week. We've been tending to other wounded from the battle around Voi and the Ark, but you were marked as priority one. Your armor was removed and packed into a box, a Master Gunnery Sergeant assigned to the _Dawn_ signed for it _."_

A hint of a smile ghosted across her features. She'd never get her armor out of his hands for long, it seemed. It was wiped off by another cough, and she frowned instead. "When can I get up and move around?"

He didn't answer for a minute, thinking. "You can move now, but we'll need you to stay on this floor of the hospital, and not to try and do anything. Doctor's orders."

She was being ordered to take it easy. "Yes, sir."

The captain seemed to eyeball her, but finally relented. "Alright. Don't go far, and if anything starts bothering you, tell one of the nurses immediately. I'll be on hand if anything comes up."

He reached up, pulling back the blanket from her and detaching a few electrodes on her chest before he gave her the okay to move, helping her sit up and bring her legs out of bed. She started to rise, grunting, and fell back to the bed. He held on to her free hand, gently giving her the help she needed to get up. Given she was still over 250lbs, it was no easy feat to do it gently.

With the Spartan back on her feet, she already felt tired. "Thank you, Captain."

He nodded. "Just keep what I said in mind." With that, he turned and made his way out, glancing back at her as he stepped out, before disappearing around the corner.

The hospital gown went down to her knees, normally supposed to be longer, but she was a little tall for that. Taking hold of the IV stand in her right hand, she wheeled it along with her, stepping out into the hall slowly. It was like just after the augmentations all over again, learning to walk with baby steps until she was comfortable with her larger body. Now, it just felt like she was too full of pain killers and off her feet too long.

She wasn't sure where she really wanted to go, to be honest, but she knew she didn't want to lie in that bed forever. A Spartan was used to being on their feet, on the go, constantly. Even after so much had happened, she wanted to be up and about, not lying in a bed wasting away.

Taking a choice at random, she started walking down one of the halls, towards a window at the far end. Arriving at the window, she looked out over the hills that rolled on, at the small buildings around them, at the remains of the New Mombasa Space Elevator littering the ground in bits and pieces in the distance.

She sighed softly, putting her hand up to the glass, and staring, looking out at the things that she had helped save. Humanity would rebuild, with or without her, but with no war to fight, what was the point of coming back alive?

Morgan realized she didn't know.

* * *

Three months had passed since the Battle of Installation 00, the Ark. The dead had been tallied and the names gathered, from all the battles of the war. UNSC uniforms were a sea of whites, blacks, and grays, standing before the monument erected on the Voi hillside. The form of a Pelican dropship's wing had been set on a pedestal, held up by several cords anchoring it in place.

Pictures of the fallen, such as Commander Miranda Keyes, Sergeant Major Avery Johnson, Gunnery Sergeant Pete Reynolds, and more covered the surface, filling most of the memorial's space, and leaving behind the inscription in the center. Flowers, boots, rifles stacked up, and helmets filled the space at the foot of the memorial.

Morgan-B312 stood in a UNSC Navy white dress uniform, bereft of medals or anything other than a rank insignia on her collar, peaked cap on a head only now returning to anywhere near its previous length after being shaved to nothing during the final hours of the war. Her skin had taken on a hint of color, her armor having never been put back on with no more need for a Spartan. The bruises on her face had healed, and the cuts and scrapes had followed, but she had a few new scars on her body, the most recent of which being the one of her chest, running from her collar bone, down between her breasts, and to just above her naval. It still itched from time to time. Her eyes were tired and empty, and she committed the scene in front of her to memory.

She was close to the front row, a Master Gunnery Sergeant in Marine gray and a Master Sergeant in the black of an ODST stood on either side of her, their own peaked caps on their heads, both standing a head shorter than the big woman. The field was silent, save for the blowing of the wind and the reading of the names of the fallen.

It had been going for some time, but nobody had made a sound, all of them soaking in each and every name that had been given in the 28 years of warfare that had plagued Humanity. The civilians would be named in larger memorials that would be held over time, but the Voi Memorial was dedicated to those who had given their lives in service to the defense of Humanity. Morgan had felt the impact of all of them, but most noticeably the deaths of Johnson, of Keyes, of Reynolds. She knew them. They were her friends. They were all another hole in her soul.

Her tears had long since dried up, and now the only thing that was left was the finality of their names. Both read and otherwise. Too many were left out, ONI protective protocols in place to prevent Spartan casualties being listed as KIA, trying to make them be every bit of the mythological soldiers that the IIs had made them out to be over the years. As far as most people knew, she was just another Spartan II. Her brothers and sisters in Noble would never be known as IIIs, and it made her sad. Their names wouldn't be known for some time. Who knew when the existence of the IIIs would be told outright, or when their sacrifices would be given the credit they deserved.

Cool metal against her skin brought her back to the present. Under the dress uniform, she still wore their tags, Jorge and Emile's, along with her own, but she kept her hands at her sides. The air smelled different without her armor filtering it constantly. It was the longest she had been without Mjolnir since she was first given her Mark IV armor set, several years before.

The drone of the voice on the stage finally ended, and the naval Lieutenant reading it off saluted, before dropping it and stepping off stage, melting back into the crowd. Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood took his place, and wordlessly, he removed his hat, placing it across his chest.

"For us, the storm has passed. The war is over. But let us never forget those who journeyed into the howling dark and did not return. For their decision required courage beyond measure, sacrifice, and unshakable conviction that their fight, our fight, was elsewhere."

Morgan grit her teeth as she listened, feeling old wounds reopen in her mind. She closed her eyes, letting her hearing guide her through the rest of the speech, and she saw all of them again, apparitions that existed only in her memories now.

"As we start to rebuild, this hillside will remain barren, a memorial to heroes fallen. They ennobled all of us, and they shall not be forgotten."

She opened her eyes again, watching the Admiral put his hat back on and saluting. Hundreds of servicemen and women did the same, and held the position as a master at arms commanded seven Marines to ready their weapons. Morgan's hand touched the brim of her peaked cap as the command to fire was given. Seven guns fired once, twice, and again, a final salute to send off those that had given their lives with those same weapons in hand, to keep the howling dark at bay, protecting their families, their worlds, and their race against whatever might lay in that darkness.

The salutes were dropped only when the final echo of the last shot had been stolen by the wind, and the Admiral left the stage. The crowd began to disperse, the somber mood hanging in the air even while they dwindled until there were only a few left. The Master Gunnery Sergeant to Morgan's left touched her arm, and she looked over at him. They hadn't spoken much since the end of the war, but he had been the one to get her tags from the hospital when he had come for her armor, as well as the others. He had nearly fought to get them back for her, and for that, he had her thanks. Her hand came up, resting against his own, and he squeezed her arm lightly before he turned and followed the crowd.

The other didn't touch her, but she turned to him next. Master Sergeant Marcus Stacker, newly promoted, looked up to see the woman under the brim of the cap. "What are your plans now, ma'am?"

Her smile faded, and her eyes seemed to go to some far off place. "I don't really know, honestly. There's no more wars for me to fight."

Stacker frowned as well. "You're not staying in?"

She shrugged. "I don't know yet. I think… I think I've had enough war for one life time."

He nodded, as if understanding. "You got any family to go home to? Anything waiting for you?"

Her smile returned, but it was sad this time, empty. "Not anymore. Covenant got them a while back. I don't really remember them all that much anymore."

Stacker winced, and he finally put his hand on her shoulder. "Guess it's time for you to find something else then, huh? Start one of your own, maybe?"

That got a chuckle out of her. "Maybe, Sarge. We'll see where things take me. If it doesn't work out, I can always come back and pester you some more, huh?"

He laughed, but kept it quiet. "There's always room in my squad for you, Commander. I'd fight with you any day. Another war kicks off anytime soon, I'll come get you myself. Sound good?"

"It's a date, Marcus."

"Good. Take care of yourself, Morgan, and don't be a stranger." Patting her shoulder, he stepped off, and Morgan didn't watch him go. Her eyes settled on the memorial again, and she heard more footsteps coming from behind.

"What's this I hear about dates?"

The southern drawl that came out of thin air was behind her, and she turned at the waist to see who it was. Another woman, tall and with tanned skin and a smile full of pearly white teeth stepped closer. Golden-brown hair was kept in a tight bun, but a few strands of hair managed to escape from it, but Morgan wasn't paying attention to that, merely happy to see the woman.

"Hocus, I thought I'd gotten rid of you." Her smile was in place again, a hint of teasing in her words.

"Call me Amber, Commander, I'm not in the bird anymore. Not yet, at least."

"Morgan, then. Still gonna hound me for that drink?"

Hocus winked, doing a finger gun motion at the Spartan. "You got it. Thought I forgot, huh?"

Morgan snorted, shaking her head. "I'd never forget it. You're buying though. Give me a little bit?"

"Yes'm, just meet me at the O Club after you're done here. I'll be waiting." Sketching a mock salute with her right hand, Hocus gave Morgan another smile and turned about, heading back down the hill to the nearby town. Most of Voi had been spared from the glassing, but the Tsavo region hadn't. Even from here, she could see the edge of the glasslands, and frowned, but that was beyond her control.

Instead, she started for the memorial. The Arbiter was there already, having stayed mostly out of sight during the memorial ceremony. He broke away from Hood, moving for Morgan, and he craned his head down in a nod, one that Morgan returned, before she stepped past and stood next to the Admiral. By now, they were all that was left.

"Sir," she announced, moving to salute, but he waved her off.

"No more of that, Commander. You've done enough of those." She frowned again, but did as she was told. It wasn't expected, but it must not have mattered. "I had expected you to disappear after the ceremony," he said, looking up at her.

"I wanted to stay a little longer, etch it into my memory. At least this will be a proper recognition of it all, rather than the nightmares it's left me with."

"That's why it's here, Morgan. So they still exist outside of our memories, so their contribution is never forgotten."

"Yes, sir." It was true. They all existed in her memories, in her thoughts, but with this memorial being erected her as a monument to them, the rest of Humanity would know them too, through those that had survived.

"It's hard to believe he's gone, isn't it?" He asked, his eyes once more on the monument. None of the Spartans had pictures or identifying imagery on the monument for obvious reasons, but she knew who he was talking about.

"It is, but there were plenty of us that didn't make it out the other side. It's just as hard with any of us. I have some tags, but… not his." Her hand came up, resting against the tags through her uniform tunic and undershirt.

Hood was silent for a time, until he gave a deep sigh. She could hazard a guess as to what it was, but she would never truly know. "I've got one more mission for you, Commander."

"Sir?"

"Live for the rest of them, for those that didn't make it. You survived for a reason, and now it's up to you to make the most of it. They're shrouded in so much black ink that both of us will probably be dead and gone of old age by the time it's declassified entirely. Until then, you've got to keep them alive, in your heart, in your mind. Can you do that for me?"

He looked back up at her, the question in his eyes. Her mouth parted slightly, and she struggled to comprehend it, until a few moments later, when it all clicked into place. "Yes, sir. Consider it done."

"Good, see to it that it gets done, I look forward to your report." The stress lines around his face were deep, forever marring his visage, but a smile managed to shine through it. He held his hand out, and she took it, the two shaking hands before he broke off. "Good luck, Morgan, and have a good life."

"I will, sir." She said the words, but inside, she didn't know if she could do that. It was a mission with no briefing, no handbook, she was never trained for it, but she was a Spartan, and she would make due.

Turning back to the memorial as Hood walked away, she looked at the photos closely, committing each one to memory. Stepping closer, up onto the platform, she looked over those closest, at Johnson's picture, Miranda's, Reynolds', and finally something caught her eye.

Hidden within several pictures, there was a space where a number had been etched into the metal, the paint scraped away and the metal scratched forever. The number 117 was scrawled in crude lines, as if someone had done it in secret, and the insignia of a Master Chief Petty Officer was taped on, hidden beneath a few other photos. It would be seen, one day, but for now, it would be enough.

A smile, a genuine smile, came to her face as she realized that at least one of them would be recognized with the rest. Putting her hand to it, she closed her eyes, feeling the warmth of the metal after soaking in the light of the sun. She said something in her mind that she would never tell another soul, something she would take to her grave, be it tomorrow or in a hundred years, and stepped away from the memorial, leaving it alone in the setting sun that officially ended the Human-Covenant War after 28 long years, and with it, Morgan-B312 left to accomplish her final mission.

She would live a good life, as good as she could. For Kat. For Carter. For Jorge. For Emile. For John. For Cortana. For Keyes. For Johnson. Their names would forever be in her heart and her mind, her friends and family.

Lost, but not forgotten.

* * *

**Here we are, the final chapter of the main story that I've been writing for… I think a year at this point. I started A Noble Cause around this time last year, and now it's basically all completed. I hope you guys have enjoyed the ride and thanks for your support while it all came tumbling out. I never expected it to be as popular as it is, and it fills my heart with joy that so many of you fell in love with reading it like I did with writing it. If you're finished and want a nice little conclusion a la Halo 3, then you can stop here. But there's an epilogue on the way, to really close it all out. No promises, but I might make a collection of one shots for things that weren't seen during the actual story, my first idea being the little meeting between Hocus and Morgan I've been teasing at since Chapter 2. We'll see where the Muse takes me. Until next time, see you guys around.**


	16. Epilogue

The dust had settled on the Human-Covenant War, and Humanity had moved back into a sense of normalcy that had been stolen from them for nearly 30 years. People were able to go outside and enjoy the sun, to work and come home to families, to watch their children grow strong and tall under the banner of peace. They still worried, old habits dying hard, but the risk of going to work one day and suddenly their planet coming down around their heads as Covenant forces invaded was diminished.

They had all disappeared into the darkness, Prophets hunted down nearly to the last by enraged, dishonored Sangheilli. The Brutes had been relegated to their homeworld, Doisac, their space forces nearly annihilated save for the scattered packs that had escaped with their former Covenant vessels, becoming warlords that would be destroyed when found, either by UNSC or Sangheilli forces. Those left on their world had already fallen to civil war, the different leadership fighting for dominance, but a constant Sangheilli presence in orbit over Doisac meant that the Brutes weren't getting on or off the world without being seen and dealt with.

The rest of the former Covenant Empire had shattered, the different races either siding with the Humans and Sangheilli, or disappearing into the void like the Jackals and Drones had done. From time to time, Jackals could be seen in pirate raids at the helm of smaller corvettes and picket ships, but the Drones almost ceased to exist, as if they all were killed off at the end of the war.

But that was all far away now, reminiscent of days gone by, where those small conflicts at the edge of Human space were little more than events on news streams and social media posts. It was still at the edge of the population's mind, but nowhere near as important to the average person as it had been when Humans were dying by the millions.

Military draw downs were in effect, people leaving the services in droves, free to work and to grow in ways that didn't involve carrying a gun into the mouth of Hell, or being cut down by the platoon when aliens came howling out of dropships to end your life and the lives of everyone you've ever cared for. Shipbuilding was still in full swing, though. Sailors and engineers were more than happy to extend tours for education and training that was put into effect in mobile shipyards that had been consolidated in Sol. The battered Home Fleet was all that had been left, and with extinction still firmly in the rear view mirror, Admirals at HIGHCOM had been more than happy to green light massive spending bills in an attempt to revitalize a ruined economy and reinforce their navy might just in case a fight ever came knocking on their door step again.

Therapy clinics and hospitals were packed more often than not, even with the war over. Service personnel and civilians alike were in and out, missing limbs or their sanity alike. PTSD had never truly been figured out, and while advancements had been made in the past three decades, it was still the silent killer that had plagued soldiers since the term Shell Shock had been used during the first Great War. People were coming home to nothing, friends and family all killed in glassings or the meat grinder that attrition warfare against an unstoppable enemy had turned into. Marines walked into new homes on other worlds, sitting in empty rooms, struggling to find purpose in a life where they had no fight after being conditioned solely to do nothing but that. Plenty of those that left the service, voluntary or otherwise, went home and ate their service weapon.

Buildups of suicide rates and prescription of anti-depressants skyrocketed, causing a new crisis to deal with, tens of millions seeing nothing but ghosts in the darkness, of friend and foe alike. The world had been saved, but those that had saved it were thrust right back into another battle that was far harder to win: A battle against themselves.

It would be some time for things to stabilize and truly return to normalcy for the vast majority, and all that was going on for the time being was that bandaids were being put on sucking chest wounds and amputations.

But for some, they had found a measure of peace, eking out an existence that had never been accounted for. Scars littered their bodies and minds, but they had learned to smile, molding their own purpose out of the simplest things with calloused hands and weary hearts. A new adventure awaited those survivors with every new day, unrestricted by the military's constant orders and deployments, without the thought of being killed with every new foot step. For them, the storm had never fully passed, but they could see the first rays of sunlight through the gray skies, and they witnessed the warmth on their face, unobscured by golden visors and heavy armor.

* * *

_Date: August 28, 2555_

_Location: New York City, United Republic of North America_

The mid-morning sun hung in the sky, not a single cloud in sight. The contrails of several passenger liners could be seen in the distance, streaking through the deep, dark blue with nothing to get in the way of them. The Manhattan Space Elevator climbed into the heavens, disappearing as it reached the darkness, but several lights lined the entirety of its skeletal structure, ready to light a path into space when the sun had set once more. Starscrapers filled the sky line of the New York Metropolitan Expanse, encompassing the vast majority of the former state of New Jersey and spanning multiple areas further into the region.

It had become the most populous single location on Earth, reaching a population nearing 50 million, and had escaped the majority of the effects of the Covenant invasion several years prior, due to an advanced and increasingly dense defense network that had shot down more than one Cruiser that had gotten close. Railgun complexes and anti-ship missile silos sat ready to defend the city if anything attempted incursion again. Even now, almost three years after the invasion, one downed CCS-class battlecruiser sat submerged in the water two miles to the east of the former site of the Statue of Liberty, a hole punched clean through it in the rear quarter. It had become a reminder of the sheer will exhibited by Humanity with their backs against the last wall.

A section of the city had been renovated, cleared of the few buildings that had been hit by the early stages of long range plasma bombardment. They left a large area open, and something had went up quickly in its footprint, a building made of stark white marble that stood out against the towering starscrapers made of steel and titanium that stood around it. It had opened the year prior, dubbed the "Museum of Humanity", and quickly filled up with exhibits of technology gathered from the years of the war, or scale models of vehicles and events trapped in time by the talented hands of artisans and craftsmen pouring their hearts into work that would immortalize those that had given everything.

Another event was opening on this particular day, scheduled for noon, only an hour away. Plenty were excited to see it, but it would be reserved for a time, left to those that had served first, and opened to the public after. For most, it was just another exhibit, one of many that had appeared almost daily at the museum, but for some, it was something more.

A nondescript white car pulled to a stop in front of the museum, idling for a few moments as a card was scanned and money switched hands inside, before the back right door opened and a woman stepped out. A slight breeze blew through the buildings, catching the bottom of the sapphire blue sundress that coated a tanned, scarred body. Long, toned legs moved for the side walk, and hands covered in the faint, white surgical scars done a decade ago kept the sundress from lifting. Black hair covered by a small brimmed sun hat, nearly shoulder length, hung down to shoulders that were covered by thin straps holding the dress up. Strands of hair attempted to fly away, blowing in the wind slightly, but she paid it no mind. Emerald green eyes scanned the building, and despite years of muscle memory and actions almost ingrained as an instinct, they weren't searching for enemy combatants. Instead, they admired the building, simplistic in design but beautiful all the same, the pure white coloring seeming almost fitting in her mind. High cheek bones were colored by the faintest amount of make up, and thin lips wore a conservative pink lipstick. Years living among civilians and learning how to be one had led to at least a bit of importance being attributed to appearance.

The woman made her way up the stairs to the doors, pushing them open and stepping into the air conditioned climate, goose bumps prickling along arms that still showed muscle definition that would make a Marine proud. The front desk sat staffed with people, attending to the various families, pairs, or even single visitors that rotated through the building every day. A line was waiting, and she stepped to the end of it, more than fine with waiting. She had waited long enough, what was a little longer?

It was a minute or two before it was her turn to be attended to, and she pulled a purse from her shoulder, covered in faux-velvet colored in royal blue, pulling a payment card and an identification card from it before handing it across the counter with a smile at the man staffed there.

He looked to be just under thirty, and had a prosthetic arm that started just below his right elbow. A nametag on his chest read 'Randal'. Stress lines covered his face, but he looked happy. Greeting her with his own smile, he took the cards and looked them over. "Are you here for the new exhibit, Miss…" Glancing down, he peeked over the ID again. "...Bailey?"

A nod, and the ID was handed back, the flash of a silver oak leaf cluster being seen on the ID that revealed her to be a prior service member. Flashing the payment card, the man automatically attributed the military discount for that day, and returned it to her. Another smile, and the man recognized something in the woman, something that he couldn't quite place, but it brought him back to the fighting around Voi.

As she placed the cards back in her purse and moved into the facility proper, he had a momentary flash, of watching a woman just as big, and likely just as scarred up, dancing through the downpour that had come down during the last hours of the fight before the Portal opened, engaging Hunters in close combat before melting away and moving to support other forces. But then it was gone, snatched up by the next patron and attending to them took up his thoughts.

The woman kept moving through the crowd that was slowly filtering into the museum proper, following signs that pointed to the new event, but she took her time. She had plenty of it. Exhibits showed replicas and demilitarized versions of all manner of Covenant weapons, even a decommissioned Wraith sat quietly in the corner on a pedestal, all the familiar curves provoking a moment of thought from the woman. She hummed as it remained quiet, unable to fight against her with no crew and the plasma reactor removed.

Others showed UNSC vehicles, a Scorpion showing battle damage across the hull and the tread pods, the gun barrel coated in the carbon scoring that came from burning propellant ejected out of the barrel so many times. It could have been restored, made to look brand new, but the facility had rightfully decided to leave it as is. It was even close enough to touch, and she reached out to run her hand across the front right tread pod, feeling the gritty steel of the armor and the wear on it. From where she stood, she could make out a faint armadillo shape on the right slope of the hull, covered in the blackness of a glancing hit that had nearly burned it away.

Scale models of UNSC ships that had done much to alter the course of the war were on display in a large room filled with events and artistic depictions of those very same events. The UNSC _Forward Unto Dawn_ sat in a spotlight, 1/200th of its normal size, and sculpted in immaculate detail, even down to the kill marks painted along the barrel of the MAC gun. Next to it, another model sat, depicting it as it had fallen on Earth at the end of the war, and it brought pain to the woman, who looked it over sadly before turning away.

She wasn't here for that either. Another room opened ahead of her, and from here, she could see a curtain hanging across another opening, reserved for military personnel only. She still had a half hour to wait, though. The next room was dedicated to the Fall of Reach, and her heartbeat went up as she entered and saw pictures of the world before it had been burned by Covenant glassing beams, before it had been turned into a dead world. Others showed a model of the city of New Alexandria, the Battle of Szurdok Ridge, one of the orbital defense grid's Super MAC platforms, and more things she had never seen personally.

Time got away from her as she looked over the planetary model that encompassed the planet in its prime, green eyes taking in every detail, and before she knew it, staff had come out from the other side of the curtain, one of them wearing different attire from the rest of the uniformed staff. He looked around, seeing several others had come into the room as well, one of them rolling around in a wheelchair, before he finally met the woman's eyes. Swallowing under the piercing gaze, he gave her a smile.

Clearing his throat, he called out to them. "Hello, thank you all for coming to the Museum of Humanity today. I'm the museum's curator. If any of you are military personnel, our new exhibit is now opening. There will be a presentation of some of the greater aspects of it, and then you'll be free to look over it for the next two hours, when it will be opened to the public."

The woman moved to the front, being the closest, but the others followed behind her, some muttering to each other, one of them looking excited, and satisfied that all of them were ready, he pulled the curtain aside to allow them in, before shutting it once all of them had entered, a staff member waiting outside.

All in all, only a dozen or so people had come as of yet, and more would likely trickle in before the public unveiling. They took in the sights of the room, seeing something that had been made mythical throughout the years, suits of armor standing tall, ready to defend Humanity when it called. For many of them, it wasn't the first time they had laid eyes on Mjolnir armor, the large suit standing in a thick plexiglass style case being the olive drab Mark VI armor setup that had been seen in the last days of the war. Its reactor was gone, and the undersuit was far from the advanced tech suit that was required, but the image was powerful nonetheless.

Pictures of Spartans from multiple images throughout the war's course were seen hosted along the walls, weapons alight with fire, or Marines in hand. Some could be seen with heavily damaged armor, plasma scoring and jagged edges showing what should have killed any other Human, but the Spartans in question were still moving, still fighting.

The Curator had a remote control in hand, subtly pressing a button and turning on one of the screens in the room, pressing play once it had activated. The sound of a weapon's bolt racking was loud and distinct, before a voice filled the room, the lights dimming slightly as those present gathered around.

" _This is Sierra-B312, you've got a Spartan on the ground, sir. We'll break that gun in half."_

Footage from a camera drone was playing on the screen, and on it could be seen a Spartan standing in blue armor, massive shoulder pauldrons protecting their head from the side. A golden visor could be seen, marred by dust that had covered it and the rest of the armor, a shotgun shell rack welded to the chest plate and a knife hanging threateningly from the waist, ready to be used. The Spartan moved for a nearby Warthog, climbing onto the gun and readying it.

The footage wobbled before cutting, segueing into another that had been taken from a Marine helmet cam, identifying information cut out from the bottom left corner. Heavy breathing and the sound of gunfire went up, causing more than one jaw in the room to clench as it came back to them like a sound from a nightmare. Rain was coming down in sheets, the pattering of the droplets on the helmet audible through the speakers, and several other Marines were running forward, towards the interior lighting of the Voi Industrial Complex's main facility. Screams and the sound of fuel rod guns pulsing could be heard over the downpour. Two Marines were already on either side of the door, firing into the interior with civilians in factory garb running out. One of them ordered covering fire, and as the Marine with the helmet cam followed the order, they caught sight of something few had seen.

The same Spartan from before was engaging Hunters in hand to hand combat, a shotgun flipping through the air before it was broken in half, hitting the Hunter hard enough that the ripping sound of the stock snapping sounded like a thunderclap. Immediately, the Spartan grabbed at a worker on the ground, sprinting out of combat. Marines covering were attacked, one nearly being smashed to death before the Spartan had stopped the Hunter's fuel rod gun. The footage cut again, not showing the Spartan being knocked away after.

Another shot, this one a still image that showed two Spartans together. One was the same, clad in blue armor, and the other was clad in olive drab, looking far sleeker and standardized than the heavy modifications done to the blue set. The two were coming off of a Pelican on the inside of a UNSC frigate. The blue armor had been damaged, the chest plate cracked and looking as if it had been hit by a truck, but still functional. Yet another piece showing how powerful the super soldiers were.

Several more images went through, showing other olive drab armored Spartans working together, others revealing a multicolored array with different armor sets that were shown dancing through Covenant squads with impunity, the embodiment of lethality.

Finally, footage from the Spartan Monument that had been unveiled the year before in Sydney, Australia, at the UNSC HIGHCOM complex was shown. Admiral Hood had given a speech, dedicated to the Spartans and asking forgiveness for all that had been done to them. It had never been announced by any of the Spartans if it was given. They had been given a designation and number to memorialize them, and only the dead had been truly named as the protocol of Spartans being listed MIA was done away with for those killed during the war. The Office of Naval Intelligence had been superseded in this area as a new class of Spartans came online, declassifications being given to the older generations bit by bit. Nobody knew where these living Spartans were, or if they were still serving or not. At the end of the dedication, it was revealed that some had gone on to live normal lives, and would not be named until their deaths, in order to give them a semblance of the lives that had been taken when they were inducted into the military.

None of the Spartans had attended the ceremony, at least not in armor. There was at least one there, though, but they had been in the audience, out of uniform and away from the uniformed personnel that had been attending.

With the end of the clip, the screen faded to black, and the Curator gave a few moments of silence before speaking, reading from a memorized speech that had been prepared in advance. "The Spartan programs were morally and ethically wrong in all manner of ways, but they were the bulwark against which the tide of Covenant soldiers broke again and again. Information provided by the Swords of Sangheillios, the primary diplomatic and defensive instrument operated by our Sangheilli allies, points out that these Humans were given titles. They were known as Demons, and feared by many of the Covenant's warriors. This new exhibit is dedicated to them, in order to memorialize their sacrifices after recent declassifications by the Office of Naval Intelligence."

Turning back to a large structure covered by a fabric cloth, he gestured to it. "Spartans were known only as Spartans by all that saw them, but there were multiple generations, Spartan IIs clad in standardized armor sets, the first to truly be named such, were originally intended to fight against rebellions in Human space before the Great War."

Pulling the curtain back on the left side of the structure, one Spartan was seen, clad in heavy Mjolnir Mark VI, flaking white paint on the left breast plate reading 117 in bold military stencil. The gold visor was perfectly mirrored, looking out over the crowd from a kneeling stance with a pair of SMGs in hand and the stock of an MA5C sticking out over their shoulder. "Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Spartan 117 is one of those known by almost all of Humanity, seen on dozens of battlefields throughout the entirety of the war. His name has not been declassified by the Office of Naval Intelligence, leading some to assume he remains active in the military, but none have reported seeing him at any point. Regardless, he is the only soldier in the UNSC to earn every single medal except for the prisoner of war medal."

The rest of the fabric was pulled aside, revealing half a dozen more cloths covering individual statues. Five of them stood on a platform at floor height, but one stood behind the rest, on another platform that was raised three feet above the others. "These next Spartans played a role just as pivotal as the Master Chief. They served during the Fall of Reach, dying nearly to the last as they sacrificed themselves to buy even one more day, fighting against insurmountable odds. These are the Spartan IIIs of Noble Team, taken from worlds that had been glassed as children and given the opportunity to fight the Covenant. Many more Spartan IIIs were made, but they were..." He trailed off, seeming disheartened. "They were suicide soldiers, dedicated to trading their lives for time with equipment cheaper and easier to make than those of the IIs. But some, for a number of reasons, were armed and armored just as their predecessors. Our only known team of Spartan IIIs in this sense is Noble."

The woman in the front of the group pursed her lips, crossing her arms, the motion going unnoticed by the rest, save for one, the man in the wheelchair.

The Curator went on, pulling the first down from the left side, revealing a Spartan that, while possibly exaggerated, was a mountain compared even to the Master Chief. A large machine gun hung in a hand that led to an arm the size of a tree trunk, an orange visor and an extra bit of armor on the helmet scanning the room wordlessly. A slot at his feet was waiting, empty, and another staffer came in with several slabs of metal in hand. The first slab was given to the Curator, who read off the name on it, and an epitaph that had been given. The Curator read the words for those in attendance.

"Chief Warrant Officer Jorge-052, a Spartan II attached to Noble. Adorned with battle scars of wars past, his armor told the story of a true Spartan. A testament to the conflicts waged over decades, he inspired Noble in their darkest hour. With his hardened voice ringing louder with each Covenant salvo on his homeworld of Reach, the destiny of Noble Team was realized, and the survival of Humanity secured. In recognition of this, his endless courage, we honor him as the fighting spirit of Noble." Slotting the first plaque into place, it was a perfect fit that would be altered later to make it more permanent, and a voice accompanied it's final resting place. _Tell 'em to make it count_. Only one person heard it.

A hand clutched at a chain in a grip stronger than most, the woman at the front holding a set of three dog tags in her hand wordlessly, her eyes starting to burn as a knot formed in her throat.

The next tarp came off, revealing a blue armored Spartan with a silver visor and a prosthetic arm. The Spartan had the curves of a woman, but even the visor looked like it had an air of mischief behind it, just like the woman that had worn it in life. Every detail was faithful, taken from helmet recordings when a set of Mark V armor had been exchanged for Mark VI.

"Lieutenant Commander Catherine-B320, the second in command of Noble. Strong both in mind and spirit, key to the success on Reach. Her cryptanalytic genius cleared Noble's path. A true Spartan, armed with an intellect more dangerous than any weapon. She deciphered the unknown to change the course of an entire war. In recognition of this, her unparalleled brilliance, we honor her as the true genius of Noble." The next plaque was slotted in its spot, and the burning in the woman's eyes grew, looking over the blue Spartan as if seeing a ghost inside the armor. The Slavic voice rang loudly in her mind, for once not toying with the woman's thoughts. _What's the matter, Morgan? Need something?_

Another tarp fell to the ground, and revealed another blue armored Spartan, a DMR hanging down by his side with their free hand up, two fingers extended as they glanced over their shoulder to the right, ordering Noble on to the next objective even in death. "Commander Carter-A259, the leader of Noble team. If not for his leadership on Reach, all would have been lost. An everlasting testament to fortitude, defiant in the face of adversity, born of unbreakable will, it was he who led Noble in its finest hour. Courageously he guided them to victory, no matter how high the cost. In recognition of this, his steadfast resolution, we honor him as the commander of Noble."

A tear slipped loose, trailing down the woman's face as she suffered the memories in silence, her makeup distorting slightly as the tear broke it down and ruined it. The next plaque settled into place with a heavy thunk, and the words that followed were heavy on her thoughts. _It's good to have you back, make him proud._

The fourth figure was revealed next, showing the eerie image of a dark armored Spartan, helmet showing a hand carved skull that was grinning at the spectators. A massive, curved blade hung from equally massive pauldrons, and one of the Spartan's hands rested on its hilt, ready to draw at a moment's notice. "Warrant Officer Emile-A239, Noble's demolitions expert and breacher. Striking fear into all he encountered while wielding the wrath of a crumbling planet, equally vicious and strong, his blade sharpened by battle, he fearlessly cut through enemy forces, instilling hope in an entire race. Marked by the skull scratched into his helmet, he was the last his enemies ever saw of this world. In recognition of this, his warrior's spirit, we honor him as the merciless wrath of Noble."

Another voice filled the woman's mind as she saw that grinning skull, the plaque slotting into place like a final representation of Emile's life. _I'm ready! How 'bout you!?_ The last words uttered by the Spartan brought more tears to the fray, and her face crumpled as she fought to keep from making a sound. The Curator glanced at her, but said nothing, not wanting to intrude on what was obviously personal to her in some way or another. Plenty had been saved by Spartans. She must have met Noble personally at some point, been saved by them, something.

Still, he went on, and the next figure was revealed, a green armored Spartan hefting a sniper rifle, crouched down and ready to take the hat off a Covenant trooper at two thousand yards. "Warrant Officer Spartan-A266, Noble's scout and sniper. Blessed with the talent of a steady hand, he stood guard over the path ahead. Patiently combing the surface of Reach, marking the location of each target, holding his breath before taking that of his enemies, his rifle echoed with the loud crack of defiance. Hidden in the shadows, his was the first shot in our fight for survival. In recognition of this, his tireless diligence, we honor him as the vigilant eye of Noble. Spartan-A266 continues to serve today, although the mission and location are classified."

Her throat tightened further, but knowing that Jun was still alive somewhere meant that she could take some solace in knowing that he had avoided meeting the same fate as the rest of Noble. More tears fell from her eyes, taking the sorrow and loss that had filled her heart ever since Noble had fallen one by one on the planet of Reach. Years of therapy and living among new friends had helped her to come to terms with it all, but this was the final bookend that gave closure to Morgan Bailey, formerly Morgan-B312.

The final statue was uncovered, revealing the Spartan that they had seen in the footage shown first. The same blue armored Spartan that had been present at the end of it all stood ready, aloof among her peers with a shotgun in hand, gold visor confident. Every detail was picture perfect, even down to wearing the old Mark V helmet that had been used during the Fall. She stood over the rest of Noble, looking out at those who were listening rather than down at her team, ready to watch over them, whether they were Spartan or not. Taking the last plaque, the Curator read it off. "Commander Spartan-B312, the other surviving member of Noble. As sharp as a knife in mind, and as brutal as any club in body, with finesse to rival a figure skater, she continued to push Noble when even their luck had run out. With an endless drive and a spirit that burned brighter than any fire ignited on a falling world, she was Humanity's guiding light even to the end. In honor of this, her unending journey, we honor her as the eternal flame of Noble. She was present during the final hours of the war, and personally led the charge alongside the Master Chief in bringing down the last remnants of the Covenant's leadership. Information regarding her otherwise remains classified, and heavily confidential. It is unknown if she still serves or not, as well as what her current mission may be."

Her own plaque slid into place at her feet, bringing to a close the story of Noble team. They were all there again, all together, looking as powerful and as real as the last time she had saw any of them alive. It hurt to look upon them, to see just what she had lost now that nothing was around to distract her. It was almost like losing them all over again.

But, in the end, it was better for her. As the last tears fell from her eyes and she forced her throat to open up once more, she took a breath of fresh air. It was the first one where their ghosts were at peace in her mind. The war had been won, partially because of their sacrifices. They wouldn't be forgotten. Not now, not ever. One day, she would join them, but that day was not today, or any time soon if she had any say in it. She finally felt like she had reached that same peace. The dream that she had had, when the Chieftain had nearly killed her on the Ark, came back to her, and she thought for a moment about it, about what it would be like to see them again.

It left her as quick as it had come on, and she swallowed, her throat slowly clearing as the tears stopped. The pain, the exhaustion, the weight on her soul, it all faded away, like water washing away the dirt and blood that had been the stain they left behind.

With the final words said, the Curator took a breath. "This concludes our very own Spartan Memorial, focusing on the exploits of the Master Chief and Noble Team, as well as their contributions to Humanity even at the cost of their lives. Feel free to continue looking around as long as you'd like. Thank you for coming, and I hope you've all enjoyed it. If you have any questions, staff will be on hand to answer them."

His job done, the Curator stepped away from them, returning to other duties as the crowd started to look around more freely. They all moved around, looking at the different pictures and models, the videos and texts on the Spartans in question. One of them remained at the monument, looking over the statues, committing every single detail to memory, and etching their faces into her mind. She would never forget them, never let time and age take their appearances from her, their final words, nothing.

The crowd filed out piece by piece, some coming, others going, but even an hour later she was still there, stock still. Another had remained, the man in the wheel chair, and he rolled up next to her. Without looking up, he kept his eyes on the statues, his voice coming out. "How are you feeling?"

She looked down at the man, seeing his features. A brown widows peak, grown out from the last time she had seen him, was still within regulations, but it wasn't shaved down. His legs ended just above the knee, and he looked up at her, the same tired features from before on his face. Captain Adam Greer, her former handler. She had lost him after he had deployed on the Ark with his team, and her last report on him had been a MASSCAS, an almost complete loss of his team through woundings or death.

"Captain, it's been a while," she started.

"It's actually Rear Admiral, now, Morgan."

She snorted, wiping away some of the streaks on her face, but just smudging the thin layer of makeup, a hint of a smile showing through. "Great, your head will get even bigger with a star on your collar."

The ONI agent chuckled at that, shaking his head. "They don't allow that in the black, you know that. New CINCONI keeps us all in line as well as Parangosky ever did." His voice was low, but she could hear the humor in it.

"I shouldn't be surprised. Not even an admiral gets a longer leash, huh?"

"Unfortunately, no."

She hummed, nodding slightly. They sat in silence for a bit, before he asked another question. "How has life been treating you since you got out?"

Her smile flickered, growing a little bit. "It's been… good."

"Good how?"

"I've learned how to be more than just a tool, I've learned how to create instead of destroy. I've made… friends." She held her hands out in front of her, as if inspecting them. Years of heavy use had made them worn and tough, far from the softness that one would expect from a woman like her at first glance. "I've got a nice little house, far from any big cities. It was empty when I got it and now I've filled it with things I like, things that make me feel good. I have a garden I tend to each day. It helps me… get my thoughts together, and I think I've gotten pretty good at it."

Greer looked up, amusement and even a bit of approval showing through. "Gardening is a nice hobby, I'm glad to hear you've found at least one that you enjoy. What about your friends?"

A shrug, her hands dropping down to her waist and clasping onto each other. "They're nice, they accepted me pretty quickly. It was hard to talk to them for a while, but they kept bringing me gifts from time to time, and they didn't mind that I stayed shut up in my house a lot. They would wave and say hello when they saw me, and it was hard to say it back. It was all too new."

Greer listened attentively, noticing they were alone for the time being as she went on. "I didn't sleep well in my bed, I kept all the lights on in case something happened, I slept with a magnum on my night stand. But after I started searching for things to do and got my garden started, they would give me advice on how best to do it, on what was in season, and even helped me find the best tools for it. Eventually, they helped me learn how to be more comfortable in my own home, helped me unwind."

Her smile had grown during her story, and Greer's grew with it. They hadn't been close, per se, and neither had seen each other since the end of the war. He hadn't been at the awards ceremony, having lost his legs during that last mission, and was kept in a hospital facility not far from where her own recovery had happened. "It sounds like you've done well for yourself then, Commander. Plenty of people have trouble coming back from war, especially one like this." His tone sombered a bit, but he quickly went on. "If you can do it, find something to keep you going, then we all should be able to, don't you think?"

Glancing down at him out of the corner of her eye, she nodded, albeit barely. "I like to think so, but not everyone is so lucky. I wish they could have seen it," she responded, eyes going back to the statues in front of them.

"I wish they could have too. If anyone deserves it, I think they would." His eyes passed over the statue of the Master Chief, wondering where the Spartan was now, if he was alive or dead, but he wouldn't bring that up now.

A distant chiming recorded the opening of the exhibit, a voice over the intercomm announcing it to the museum. People were already starting to come in, and Morgan looked back down to Greer. "I think it's time I get going, Admiral."

Greer nodded, grunting as he adjusted his seat in the wheelchair. "I think it's time for me to go too. I'm glad we got to see each other again."

Morgan held her hand out, and Greer took it, his hand smaller than hers, much to his internal amusement. "Thank you for the invitation. I look forward to our next meeting, whenever it is."

He chuckled. "Hopefully it'll be soon, in a more relaxed setting. Take care of yourself, Morgan."

"You should do the same, Adam. Be safe, they might give you another star if you lose any more limbs."

Greer laughed, one that came from deep within, and brought a few eyes over to them. When he finally calmed down, he saw that Morgan was giving him a smirk, one that almost seemed… _mischievous_. It only made his own smile grow. "God help me if they do." Bringing a card from his pocket, he held it out to her. On it, there were a few details for him, including a personalized messaging address. "If you ever need anything..."

Trailing off, Morgan got the message, nodding and sliding it into her purse after making sure she had memorized the address just in case. "I'll know who to call." Waving to the man, she turned and left, Greer watching her go before he turned back to the statues. She hadn't come for anything but this, and he was happy that he had been able to track her down. She deserved the closure it had given her.

The woman in the blue sundress felt the smile on her face sticking, for once not immediately dropping to a more neutral expression or a frown. Her heart was lighter, and she felt like she had been reborn after today. Pulling her phone from her purse as she walked, she scheduled for another pickup to return her to the tram station. A bullet train would take her home.

Sliding it back into her purse, she took a deep breath, stepping back out into the afternoon sun. It warmed her face, contrasting with the air conditioning inside. Her ride would arrive in a few minutes, leaving her to her thoughts. People walked by on the sidewalk, chattering into electronics, talking with friends, some going into the museum or coming out, and for once, she was taking it all in at her own pace.

When her ride finally arrived, she got in the back seat once more, giving her destination before leaning against the door and peering out the window. Finally, she had gotten her peace, and she would make the most of it.

With the car accelerating out of its parking space, Morgan-B312 was put back into a box in the back of her mind, locked away until she was needed again, and Morgan Bailey looked forward to returning home, to her garden and to her friends, to a place that she had created for herself.

Her mission had finished, replaced by a life worth living.

* * *

**Epilogue's all done! I hope you all enjoyed it. This concludes The Flame of Nobility and its predecessor. Plenty of you are asking about sequels, about whether or not Morgan will take to the battlefield again, find the Chief one way or another, and to be honest, I don't really know just yet. But that doesn't rule it out at all. As of right now, don't expect anything new any time soon aside from whatever pops into my head as an idea for a self contained single chapter story, or a collection of which. So long as there's nothing explicitly stated for a sequel to this, don't expect it, but who knows what'll happen down the line. Again, thanks for joining me, and for all the kinds words you've all given me. It means a lot to me, and I'm overjoyed that it's been a story you've fallen in love with.**

**Until next time, take care, and see you again.**


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